Skip to main content

Google Photos is choosing your happiest pics for a ‘Smiles of 2017’ video

best songs about friendship
Gpointstudio/123RF
As the curtain comes down on another year, you might be taking a moment to swipe through your photos from 2017, enjoying (hopefully) happy reminders of the friends you met, the places you went, and the things you did.

Looking back on the year has prompted Google to offer users of its Photos app a Smiles of 2017 video, which uses A.I. to pull together all of your images that feature, you guessed it, smiles. Or at least, what its algorithm perceives to be a smile.

Recommended Videos

The slideshow video lasts around 50 seconds and features music from Google’s own library. Of course, if you like it you can save and share it, too.

First spotted by Android Police, the auto-generated Smiles of 2017 videos have so far been appearing in Photos for a limited number of users — it might depend on how many images you have with toothy grins!

Anyone receiving the Smiles of 2017 video from Google should get a notification. But in case you want to check for yourself, just tap on the “Assistant” tab in Photos at the bottom left of your smartphone display to see if it’s available. If it’s not, give it another look before the year’s out.

Google has rolled out auto-generated videos for Photos before. First introduced in 2016, the so-called “creative concepts” have included Summer of Smiles and Special Day that also use algorithms to select the appropriate images.

If you can’t wait for a Smiles of 2017 video to appear in your Photos app and you’re keen on creating your own, then it’s simple to do. Just hit the “Assistant” tab, select “Movie” from the listed choices that appear, and then tap on as many as 50 of your favorite images. Once you’re done, tap “create” at the top right and let Google do the rest.

Hit the “play” button and enjoy the memories, and if you don’t like Google’s selection of music, you can choose something from your own library by hitting the music note icon, located at the bottom center. Likewise, if you want to remove any images, add news ones, or change the order in which they appear, tap the film strip icon, bottom right, and carry out the edits there.

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
You can now try one of the best new Google Photos features in years
Pixel 9 Pro in Rose Quartz showing Google Photos.

If you have a lot of photos, you know that searching through them can be a bit of a daunting task. Thankfully, if you use Google Photos, searching your photo library is now easier than ever thanks to some search improvements and Ask Photos with Gemini. Both of these features are rolling out today, though the Ask Photos feature is only available to select users through Google Labs.

What exactly is Ask Photos? It goes a step beyond the standard search experience in Google Photos by using the most recent Gemini models to understand your photo gallery. This means the most important people in your life, your hobbies, favorite foods, and more. With this data, Ask Photos can pull out relevant details in your photos to help you find those specific memories that you’re looking for, as well as help uncover information about your life as a whole.

Read more
Google just launched these 5 new features for your Android phone
The display on the Google Pixel 9 Pro XL.

Google is bringing a handful of new features to Android phones, including tools to keep users safe during a natural disaster, enhancements to accessibility using AI, and easier music discovery. Simultaneously, the company has reached a critical milestone with Android 15, pushing it closer to its public release in the coming weeks.
Keeping users safe during earthquakes

Google says its remarkable earthquake alert system is now available to users across all American states and territories. It plans to reach the entire target base within the next few weeks. Google has been testing the system, which also relies on vibration readings collected from a phone’s accelerometer, since 2020.

Read more
Google is about to make it a lot easier to customize your Pixel phone
A person holding the Google Pixel 8.

When you first set up a phone, it's essentially the same as every other phone. Customizing it to suit you is part of the fun. Google looks to be making this process a lot easier with a redesigned "Wallpaper & style" page for Pixel phones and tablets.

The news comes courtesy of Android Authority, which first discovered the updated wallpaper app in the Android 15 QPR1 beta (with a full release expected in December).

Read more