Google Photos readies a much-needed video editor redesign

Summary

• Google Photos is redesigning its video editing UI with bigger icons and user-friendly labels for tools like Mute and Enhance.
• New video editor updates also include a speed adjustment tool with a speedometer icon for adjusting video playback speed.
• While the core functionality is there, Google will likely enhance the tool before rolling it out to the public.

Google Photos‘ is a complete gallery app, with intuitive features for storing and viewing media on your device. The app makes it easy to share photos with loved ones, and offers a suite of other user-friendly features that make it easy to back up media on the cloud and/or organize media within the app.

Earlier this year, the application gained several of Google’s flagship AI photo editing features, including the likes of Magic Eraser, Photo Unblur, Portrait Light, and more, all without a subscription required. Now, it looks like the platform is working on cleaning up its suite of video editing tools with support for one new feature.

The platform is working on redesigning its video editing UI, replacing its current tools’ icons with bigger ones. The change, which was first spotted in Google Photos version 6.93 by Android Authority, should also bring user-friendly labels to the tools, making it easier for users to understand which icon is for which tool.

The change brings bigger and clearly labeled icons for video editing tools like Mute, Enhance, and Stabilize. It also incorporates the Export frame feature as an icon alongside other tools. For reference, the tool appeared as its own right-aligned pill, taking up more space on the interface than warranted, as seen in the first screenshot above.

Elsewhere, the UI change also gives us our second look at the speed adjustment tool we reported on earlier this month.

Alongside the other video editing tools, the playback speed adjustment tool also appears in the new build, donning its new icon and a label to go with it. The feature, which essentially lets you adjust your video’s playback speed in increments of 1/4x, 1/2x, 2x, and 4x, was first spotted with a “1x” icon.

With the new build, the tool is clearly marked as Speed, with an icon that resembles a speedometer. The feature is still likely rough around the edges, hence, it hasn’t made its way to the stable Google Photos build yet. While the core functionality is there, Google will likely enhance the tool with an option to adjust different segments of a video in one instance before rolling it out to the public.