Despite only beginning its rollout today, Google Photos quietly is testing one of its most ambitious interface refreshes in years with an embrace of Material 3’s Expressive design language. At least that’s what the APK teardown of version 7.45 indicates, with a refreshed album view, new typography and revamped navigational elements all currently hidden behind feature flags — hinting at a major visual/usability overhaul on the cards.
The revamp is in line with what Google’s Material Design team teased at Google I/O, where the “Expressive” track highlighted bolder type and stronger hierarchy, layouts that are more content-focused. As is the case with many Google app overhauls, this seems to be a server-side change that’s arriving in stages as the finishing touches are put on it.
A better album view and expressive typography
The new album screen is the highlight of this update. Album titles transition from a small, bottom-left overlay to a bigger, centrally aligned headline that’s now easier to quickly read. In the title, a heavier typeface and increased size nod at the expanded type scale used in Material 3 (which also maximizes legibility amid crowded covers), granting every album more of a “hero” treatment.
The cover art itself takes up more of the top area, pushing photos ahead and cutting back surrounding chrome. This shift resonates more closely with Material 3’s aim of making imagery the interface, rather than a mere decorative graphic.
Google has previously shown off a fancier flourish: text that smartly wraps around the album’s subject, sometimes called shape-aware or subject-aware typography. Though there’s evidence of this behavior in the code, it doesn’t seem to be active in testing. Because Photos already uses AI segmentation for features like Magic Eraser and Portrait Blur, it’s conceivable that subject detection could be the key to powering this text-wrapping effect when and if that time comes.
Menu and sorting changes that clean up the UI
The three-dot overflow menu gets two new arrivals to the neighborhood: “Play highlights” and “Cast.” To wit, play highlights is still quick action on an album cover (so users aren’t losing a shortcut they knew was there while the menu becomes just more of a catch all for album actions.)
Sorting controls has been moved from the main album UI to the album editing screen. In the meantime, the comments button makes a floating translation to the bottom bar. Between them, they declutter the visual surface, centralize less-frequent functions and double-down on Material 3’s advice to favor primary actions over utilities in predictable positions.
Why this redesign matters
With an audience in the billions, even minor design changes in Photos can ripple at scale. Material 3’s Expressive approach – which has bolder typography, stronger spacing and crisper motion – hopes to add lightness and readability to dense media interfaces. It builds on the direction we’ve seen in recent Photos updates, from a new look for icons and progress indicators to a cleaner editor.
There’s also a practical side to making things accessible. Bigger, centered titles and better contrast make the reading experience easier, especially on large screens such as foldables or tablets. Larger tap targets and an unchanging position of action, are among Material 3 changes that reduce accidental taps Dynamic color support introduced on modern Android can be used to establish the UI’s footing in the system theme without granting a blurry vision.
How to see it
Dug out of an APK teardown of the Google Photos 7.45 app, these changes are present as hidden ones through internal flags that you can turn on if you want to give them a whirl right now.
As usual, Google ships UI changes with server-side switches, so these designs could be live for some users and not others (and may arrive or disappear before a stable launch). When and if it appears more broadly, the redesigned album view should be your most visible clue that Material 3 Expressive has landed in Photos.
This is a clear indication for now of where Photos is going: A cleaner, more confident visual language that makes your imagery shine—exactly what the Material Design team has been preaching in its latest guidelines and Android Developers documentation.
