Google is rolling out a new feature that will help Gmail users transfer emailed photos from their accounts directly to Google Photos. Google said it will be gradually releasing the feature over the next 15 days, starting from May 27, Thursday.
The new 'Save to Photos' button, currently available only for images in JPEG format, will arrive for personal Gmail users, Google Workspace, G Suite Basic, and G Suite Business customers in the next couple of weeks.
"You'll see it next to the existing "Add to Drive" button on the attachment and while previewing the image attachment. Currently, this is only available for JPEG images," Google said in an update. Now when you get a photo attachment in a Gmail message, you can save it directly to Google Photos with the 'Save to Photos' button.
According to the company, the new feature frees users from having to download photo attachments from Gmail messages in order to then manually back them up to Google Photos.
This feature will be ON by default. For an eligible photo, you can choose the 'Save to Photos' button which is alongside a similar option to ‘Add to Drive'.
Google has also announced that from June 1, any new high-quality photos and videos you backup will count toward the free 15GB of free storage that comes with every Google account, or the additional storage you've purchased as a Google One member. The company said that your existing high-quality photos and videos are exempt from this change.
Google recently said that it is also rolling out a storage management tool in the Photos app to help you easily manage photos and videos you've backed up that count toward your storage quota.
"The storage management tool surfaces photos or videos you might want to delete -- like blurry photos, screenshots and large videos -- so you can get the most out of your storage. You can also purchase more storage through Google One where available," the company said. It will be renaming its high-quality storage tier to Storage saver.
The company estimates that more than 80% of the users should still be able to store roughly three more years of memories in high quality with your free 15GB of storage. As your storage nears 15GB, Google will notify you in the app and follow up by email.