Samsung’s Motion Photos finally work with Google Photos

You can finally back up your shot-on-Galaxy animated stills.

While maybe not the most popular feature on any given Galaxy phone, Motion Photos is a fun feature within the Samsung camera app that livens up photos by capturing a few seconds before and after you hit the shutter button, embedding a short video behind each photo you take. They're more or less the same as Google's Motion Stills, except that Google Photos wasn't able to properly store them … until now.

According to a report by Android Police, users have started noticing that Google Photos is suddenly able to process and properly play back Motion Photos taken with modern Samsung flagships, both in mobile and desktop views.

Just like a Motion Still taken from a Pixel, Motion Photos are displayed among your regular photos, but with a Motion On/Off button at the top of the lightbox.

Interestingly, though, Google Photos seems to be applying its own stabilization and processing to Motion Photos after they're uploaded. Users reported that the uploaded copies didn't match the ones stored locally on their Galaxy phones.

If you're still unable to upload Motion Photos to Google Photos, our advice is to just be patient. Support seems to be rolling out as a server-side update, rather than a universal push.

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Samsung Galaxy S10

The best phone for most people.

$900 at Amazon

The Galaxy S10 is one of the most well-rounded phones on the market, perfectly blending modern software with excellent hardware design and a versatile triple-camera array. Add water resistance and wireless charging to the mix, and the S10 is more than enough phone for the vast majority of people.