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When I select multiple photos from a Google Photo album, I need to move them to an existing, or new, album, and then archive them.
Right now, it is very time-wasting to have to do it in two steps, especially since Google unselects the photos and I have to go back and re-select them just to archive them (with Shift+A).

Ideally there would be this item in the operations menu:

enter image description here

Does such a thing exist, ideally without tapping into some Google API?

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  • 3
    Google should be ashamed for not implementing such a simple feature long before now. What's worse, when you create an album it doesn't show up in search for some time, which is also so unacceptable I could just spit!
    – Michael
    Commented Dec 20, 2020 at 3:27
  • 5
    They could at least not de-select your selections allowing you to perform multiple operations on that selection.
    – user3015682
    Commented Feb 27, 2022 at 15:42

4 Answers 4

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If you want all the images in the target album to be archived, then this is easy.

  1. select all the photos you wish
  2. move them to the album
  3. view the archive: https://photos.google.com/archive
  4. at the top right, choose "add photos"
  5. in the search box, type your album name and then select the album
  6. it may be easier now to select the photos from that album, especially if you could archive them all - just click the first and shift-click the last.
  7. click "done" in the top right.

The photos will be removed from the main collection but remain in the album and the archive.

If you don't wish to archive all the photos in that album then at step 2 move them to a new temporary album after step 7 move them to the real target album

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  • This technique worked better for me. @arieljannai's answer resulted in some photos from the album missing from the search results (and it could also cause false positives depending on the album name). This technique, by contrast, seems guaranteed to match exactly all of the photos in the album.
    – DataGraham
    Commented Oct 12, 2018 at 1:32
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    this used to work for me so long as i refreshed the archive page after creating the album, but today when i paste in the album name it's still not showing any results even after some time has passed since the album was created. UGH! STUPID GOOGLE!!!
    – Michael
    Commented Jun 17, 2020 at 18:59
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Without working with the API (which I haven't checked what's possible with), your closest option (which is not a single operation) is to:

As follows:

  1. Add your selected photos to an album (existing or new).
  2. Search for your album name (not going into the album).
  3. In the search results, you'll see your album in the top part, and under it - the pictures which match the search.
  4. Your photos will be in the search result, and you could choose them and archive them. It will make the re-selecting part easier, since all the photos are there and no need to picky select them again.
    • To select a range of photos, you can hold Shift and select the first and last photos in your range.

Three points to notice:

  • The pictures in the search result will be those inside the album named as the searched term, potentially, including more pictures which match the search.
    If the album name is not something that describes photos (in contrast to "cookies"), so the results probably will show only the relevant photos, and it will be easy to select all of them.
  • If the album is new, it might take a minute until the search results would update to reflect the new change, and until the search will find the album and its associated photos.
  • If you select multiple photos, and at least one of them is not archived, then Shift+A would archive. If all the selected are archived - the action would be to unarchive.

Example: enter image description here enter image description here

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  • Close, but searching for the items again means I have to click on each one again after I had originally had to carefully click on each one in the first place, in order to add them to an album. I'm trying to reduce the " "finger burden" of clicking on each one. But thanks.
    – bgoodr
    Commented Mar 12, 2018 at 0:07
  • I have to qualify that last comment: I can use the Shift key on the last photo in a consecutive set of photos as indicated in sites.google.com/site/picasaresources/Home/Picasa-FAQ/… (ignore the fact that it is for Picasa as I have verified it works for Google Photo as well). So that reduces the finger burden tremendously, although it isn't a "Move and Archive" operation that I originally desired.
    – bgoodr
    Commented Mar 12, 2018 at 0:14
  • Oh, I thought you were aware of the Shift operation for range selection - I know it's not the best, but it's the closest you can get. And with the searching method I described it would be probably less clicks than choosing the photos from the main window, unless they're all consecutive, which in that case there won't be any difference.
    – arieljannai
    Commented Mar 12, 2018 at 11:30
  • Google Photos fill up so fast and yet offers so little in the way of photo management. Their UI makes sorting your photos a nightmare. This feature, amongst many others, are desperately needed.
    – David Alsh
    Commented Oct 4, 2021 at 0:26
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I found how to do this... go to the album itself, then click the "Add Photos" icon in the upper right. From there you'll be able to add multiple photos from the search.

enter image description here

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  • This doesn't archive the photos.
    – Dan Dascalescu
    Commented Mar 5 at 5:53
-1

I was looking for this feature. My solution might not be what you are looking for - but it works almost perfectly for me.

  1. Archive all the photos
  2. Sort to the folders you want from the Archive
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