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Google Photos will soon let you zoom in on videos

Google Photos is perhaps the best way to store photos up in the cloud and it’s definitely something you ought to install on a parent’s phone this time of year. However, it’s never let users zoom in on videos while they’re playing. In the latest Google Photos update on Android, it seems that the ability to zoom on videos is finally in the works.

Spotted and manually enabled by XDA, Google Photos v4.33 for Android has the ability to zoom in on videos hidden behind the scenes. This basic functionality is something that, personally, I didn’t even know the service lacked. With that in mind now, it seems like a pretty huge oversight.

In its current state, Google Photos won’t respond to pinch-to-zoom gestures while playing a video in either portrait or landscape orientation. As seen in the GIF below, that will soon change when the app is updated to support zooming in on a video to close in on a specific area of the shot.  While this probably won’t be useful in all cases, I can see it being handy for videos of a concert or similar situations.

It’s unclear at the moment, though, when this feature will actually roll out to users. Right now, it’s just in testing and isn’t user-accessible. Hopefully, that changes soon.

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Avatar for Ben Schoon Ben Schoon

Ben is a Senior Editor for 9to5Google.

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