Google Photos has a new button to let you start editing videos with a single tap

Google is hard at work, developing improvements to make the overall Photos app experience even better. We recently reported on evidence suggesting that the app could soon allow users to filter images by people and pets in an album. The app could also introduce new speed options for animations created in Google Photos. While time will tell if those features see the light of day, we have come across a new addition that’s available right now.

Last year, Google Photos introduced a quick edit option that allows you to edit and enhance images with a single tap. After selecting a picture in your gallery, tapping on share will immediately bring up the quick edit screen. Here you can crop your photo, enhance it, and compare the enhanced version to the original before it’s shared. While this option previously only existed for photos, Google is finally showing some love to videos.

The next time you try to share a video in Google Photos, you’ll likely see a new quick edit button. We spotted the new button in version 7.95.0.989626323 of the Google Photos app. This button appears in the bottom right corner of the video preview when the share sheet is open.

Tapping on the button opens the normal video editor, giving you access to the full set of editing tools before you share. Once you’re done editing and you hit Save, you’ll be taken back to the share sheet. However, you’ll now see a preview of the edited video. As you’ll see in the example above, we used the quick edit option to crop the video to half its size.

While this button technically acts as a quick edit option, it’s necessary to point out that there are three main differences between this and the version for photos:

1. The first difference is that edited videos are saved to your storage. For images, quick edits are only saved to your library if you create a share link or add it to a shared album.
2. When sharing a photo, you’re first shown the quick edits screen before you’re taken to the share sheet. However, you have the option to turn the quick edits screen off. For videos, there is no quick edit screen, only a button. As a result, there is no option to turn it off.
3. Finally, the quick edits screen is only available for pictures that have yet to be edited. The edit button appears for all videos, regardless of whether they’ve been edited or not.