Android 14 is a little behind schedule for its stable rollout, but apps have been optimizing their components and user experience to align with the OS update. There are many noteworthy changes in this year’s release, but the share sheet is one of the most noticeable user-facing ones. Google’s own apps are ditching their custom share sheets in favor of the new design. Google Photos is also working on support for the Android 14 share sheet, and we have our first look at the implementation.
Back in 2021, custom share sheets were one thing we wished Google fixed in Android. They often loaded slowly because share options weren’t cached, and even then, the direct share targets rarely featured the people we contact frequently. The custom share sheets in apps didn’t even let us build muscle memory, because the app shortcuts were moved around frequently. Android 14 is bringing a new default share sheet, though, and app developers have spent the last few months developing their implementations. Among Google’s own apps, Chrome was the first adopter back in February, with the beta build in April also featuring the change. Now Google Photos is following suit.
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The new Android 14 share sheet in Google Photos
Nail Sadykov of the Google News Telegram channel spotted the change. The Android 14 system share sheet allows app developers to embed their own shortcuts related to the app content. The system share menu in Chrome shows your selected content with related action buttons underneath, followed by two horizontal scrolling sections dedicated to direct share targets and apps. The implementation in the cards for Google Photos places thumbnails of your selected images and videos with four app-specific shortcuts housed in pill-shaped buttons — Create link, Send in Photos, Add to Album, and Create Album. Depending on your display settings, you may have to scroll through the options horizontally to access all of them.
Interestingly, there’s just a tiny video camera icon in the upper right corner of thumbnails for video, separating them from the photos you select. Google Photos will also add a Modify option in the upper right corner of the share sheet, using which you can modify your media selection. It is a nice way to select more files or deselect a few accidental inclusions before sharing the media.
It is nice to see Google leaving by example and adopting the Android 14 share sheet in its own apps. However, the implementation in the Photos app is still in development, and could change before we get to beta test it properly. A timeline for such a beta release is also unclear.
