Google Photos hits v2.0 with new permanent album sorting

Google Photos has been updated to version 2.0 in the past 24 hours, but don’t get too excited, there hasn’t been a complete overhaul of the popular photo storage app. However, Google has introduced a couple of handy new features, including permanent album contents sorting, and a couple of tweaks to the user interface.

The new permanent sorting of album contents is the big new feature, so we’ll start with that. Essentially it does what the name suggests, Photo users can now sort the pictures in their albums by oldest first, newest first, or recently added, and these ordering changes will be saved for when you next pop in to look at the album, regardless of which device you log in from. Neat. This features essentially builds on the temporary sorting option that was implemented a couple of months ago along with the album overflow menu.

To sort your pictures, simply head into an album and then either open the overflow menu and select “edit album” or tap on the album name to begin editing. From here you should be able to spot a new icon in the top right that looks like a pair of arrows pointing up and down. Click that, and you’ll be presented with your sorting options.

Other than that, the remaining changes with Google Photos 2.0 have been made to the user interface. Selfies appear to have disappeared from the list of quick search options in order to save some space, although the grouping can still be found by typing the term into search. There’s a new icon that appears when rearranging photos in an album that displays how many pictures are selected. And finally,the ‘Group similar faces’ option in the Settings menu has been renamed to ‘Face grouping’ and also has a new description, although the functionality remains the same.

If you haven’t spotted these changes yet, don’t fret. Google will be rolling them out gradually, as usual. If you can’t wait, you can always grab the signed APK from the link below.