Users can search for anything in photos, with the service returning results from three major categories: People, Places, and Things.

The computer vision of Google Photos recognizes faces (not only those of humans, but pets as well), grouping similar ones together (this feature is only available in certain countries due to privacy laws); geographic landmarks (such as the Eiffel Tower); and subject matter, including birthdays, buildings, animals, food, and more.

Reviewers praised the updated Photos service for its recognition technology, search, apps, and loading times.

Google+ offered photo storage and organizational tools that surpassed Facebook's in power, though Google+ lacked the user base to use it.

[17] In November, Google released a separate app – PhotoScan – for users to scan printed photos into the service.

[20] In February 2017, Google updated the "Albums" tab on the Android app to include three separate sections; one for the phone's camera roll, with different views for sorting options (such as people or location); another for photos taken inside other apps; and a third for the actual photo albums.

[29][30][31] Towards the end of the month, Google introduced an "Archive" feature that lets users hide photos from the main timeline view without deleting them.

[37] On June 25, 2020, Google Photos introduced a major redesign to the mobile and web apps, accompanied by a new, simplified logo.

Intelligence officers told the Times that the unit uploads databases of known faces to the service and uses its search functions to identify individuals.

A Google spokesman commented that the service is free and "does not provide identities for unknown people in photographs.

[10] The Photos service analyzes and organizes images into groups and can identify features such as beaches, skylines, or "snowstorm in Toronto.

[8] The Places category uses geotagging data but can also determine locations in older pictures by analyzing for major landmarks (e.g., photos containing the Eiffel Tower).

[10] The Things category processes photos for their subject matter: birthdays, buildings, cats, concerts, food, graduations, posters, screenshots, etc.

[8] Users can swipe their fingers across the screen to adjust the service's photo editing settings, as opposed to using sliders.

This could potentially lead to vendor lock in if the user wants to keep using features requiring those missing pieces of data.

[53] The move was part of an effort to reduce Google's reliance on ad-based revenue and increase subscriptions.

[64] Kastrenakes described the service's May 2015 release as evidence that Google was spinning out the "best features" of its Google+ social network.

[8] Mossberg described the release as "liberation day" for the photos features that were "effectively hidden" in the "widely ignored social network".

[10] The service's strategy, as described by Josh Lowensohn of The Verge, was to put all data on Google's servers so that it can be accessed universally.

[9] Kastrenakes compared the service's new image analysis to technology unveiled by Flickr earlier in the same month.

He criticized the service's sync functions, and preferred folders of images over an unsorted "flat database".

Dvorak also highlighted the service's poor choice of photos to animate and lack of longevity guarantees, considering the company's abrupt cancellation of Google Reader.