Google Photos’ 2025 Recap turns to Gemini to find your highlights

Google Photos users can now access year-end Recap, the photo hosting site’s version of something akin to Spotify Wrapped. As with other yearly reviews, Google Photos Recap lets you look back on the past year in photos, offering a collection of memorable highlights enhanced with graphics and other effects, as well as photo stats and more.

The company says US users will also have access to Google’s new AI-powered feature, Gemini, which will showcase your hobbies and other top features.

First introduced in 2024, Google Photos Recap aims to capitalize on the data-driven review trend, popularized by services like Spotify Wrapped and, in past decades, by Time travel apps like Timehop.

However, this year, Google Photos Recap is also a proving ground for Gemini, as the company unleashes artificial intelligence on your photo archive to help surface more moments you might want to review. Google says Gemini models can understand the context of your photos to get more details. Specifically, templates were used to identify things like your “true passion” and other top four highlights that “made your year” in the bottom line.

Additionally, the summary will provide photo statistics from the year, such as total number of photos, top people, and new for this year, total number of selfies. The feature now also lets you hide specific people or photos. After doing this, you can rebuild your feed to get an updated version.

Photos and memories from Recap can be easily shared on social media and anywhere else. The new integration with CapCut will add a button at the end of the Recap to export it to the photo and video editing app, where you can use other Google Photos templates to further customize the Recap.

There’s also a new carousel at the end of the feed containing short videos, photos, and collages designed to be shared in group chats or social media. An option also allows you to share the Recap directly to your WhatsApp status.

If you don’t see your Recap right away, you can ask Google Photos to create it for you using an option at the top of the app. After viewing the summary, it will remain in your app throughout the month of December. To access it again during this time, you can find it either in the back of your Memories library or pinned to the Collections tab.

In addition to the annual review, Google Photos will release a series of 2025 highlights throughout December, the company said.