Having trouble accessing shared albums in Google Photos? You're not alone

Not millions, but billions of people rely on Google Photos to store their captured memories. As such, it would be a big problem if something went wrong with the service for whatever reason. Unfortunately, it appears that’s happening now as a number of reports are popping up about an issue preventing users from accessing old shared albums on desktop.

Multiple reports have appeared on Google’s help page, IssueTracker, and on Reddit about an issue facing Google Photos. The issue in question appears to be causing some users to run into a 500 error when attempting to access their shared albums when visiting on desktop. Even well-known tipster Evan Blass (a.k.a Evleaks) has been affected by the problem, claiming that some shared albums have gone missing or have become inaccessible.

However, the issue seems to go further than just the web app. On Reddit, a user states that they tried to open their shared albums on the Android app, but received a notification that said “Couldn’t load album.” That user says that they cleared their app data and logged into the app again, but only found two of the 10 albums they should’ve had. They also mentioned they cleared their cache and logged into the desktop version, but to no avail.

Fortunately, the affected users report that their photos still exist; there’s just a problem with the shared albums feature at the moment. Additionally, it seems the issue does not extend to newly created shared albums.

Some Redditors have pointed to a couple of commonalities between affected users — each affected user is said to have a Pixel 9 or a Google One 2TB subscription. It’s important to keep in mind that this could just be a coincidence.

This issue reportedly started around August 23. Since then, the tech giant has yet to acknowledge the problem. Android Authority has reached out to Google for comment. We’ll update this article when new information becomes available.

Thanks to Jonathan M. for the tip!