- Google Photos has unveiled a series of upgrades to its video editing software that take inspiration from CapCut
- You can now choose from a variety of video templates to create a seamless short format video, and there’s even the option to add music and text
- Google has also announced that its revamped video editor has become the default editing software on Android
Google Photos is undergoing another round of changes, and the photo service has begun rolling out major upgrades to its video editing tool that employ similar features to CapCut — one of our best video editing apps.
Short-form video editing apps are more popular than ever in an age of ubiquitous TikToks and Instagram Reels, and now Google Photos has decided to tap into this market. The company announced in a blog post that “creating and editing your videos is easier than ever with new features you’ve been asking for,” and says the updates are available to some users now.
With the exception of one new feature, all of the new Google Photos upgrades are available on both Android and iOS devices — so what’s new?
Templates, a new timeline and more
For starters, Google Photos now finally has templates, making it much faster to create a video with different clips – perfect for newbies to video editing. Each template comes with its own music, text and clips that are synchronized to the soundtrack.
All you have to do is select the footage from your Google Photos gallery to use in your chosen template, and a TikTok-worthy highlight reel will be created in seconds. This tool is only available on Android at the moment, but iOS users won’t miss out on other exciting new updates.
The Google Photos video editor itself is also getting a major overhaul, which the company says makes it more user-friendly for everyone, but the biggest upgrade is the new ‘universal timeline’. Similar to functions in e.g. CapCut’s new editing view allows you to see all the clips and images you’ve added to a video in one place, where you can easily trim individual clips and drag to rearrange them – nice and simple.
Search for the perfect soundtrack and add funky lyrics
You can make the best short-form video ever, but it won’t really come to life until you layer a catchy tune over it, and this is another handy upgrade from Google Photos. Soundtracks are now available in the redesigned video editor, and you can now search Google Photos’ music library to find a song that perfectly matches the content of your highlight.
In addition to adding music, there is a new custom text option that you can overlay on your featured reels. You can choose from an extensive selection of fonts, colors and text backgrounds to make your final video edit pop.
To top things off, Google revealed that its redesigned video editor has now become the default editing software on Android when you want to edit individual videos. All you have to do is open a video from your gallery and select the Edit button to get started, and you even have the option to add text and music to individual videos just like highlight reels.
As mentioned, all of these features are currently rolling out on Android, and most of them on iOS, and if you haven’t gotten access yet, don’t worry—Google says the new video editing tools will be landing soon, so you’ll be able to use your creative abilities.
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