Why Disable Memories in Google Photos?
Google Photos automatically curates your uploaded images and presents them to you in a feature called “Memories.” This feature creates stylized slideshows at the top of your app featuring “Recent Highlights,” “1 Year Ago Today,” or themed collections like trips and specific people. While many people enjoy revisiting the past, these automatically generated memories can sometimes surface painful moments, lost loved ones, or periods of your life you would rather not be reminded of without warning. If you prefer to browse your photos manually and want to stop Google from automatically presenting you with past events, you can completely disable the Memories feature.
How to Turn Off Memories in the Google Photos App
You can turn off these automated slideshows directly from the settings menu within the Google Photos mobile app on iOS or Android.
- Open the Google Photos app on your smartphone or tablet.
- Tap on your Profile Picture or initial in the top right corner of the screen.
- In the menu that appears, tap on Photos settings.
- Scroll down and tap on Preferences.
- Tap on Memories.
- Select Featured memories.
Disabling Specific Memory Types
In the Featured memories section, you will see toggles for the different types of automated content Google creates. To stop all of them, you need to turn off every toggle.
- Toggle off Previous years to stop seeing “On this day” recaps.
- Toggle off Recent highlights to stop seeing weekly or monthly automated summaries.
- Toggle off Themed memories to stop Google from grouping photos by people, pets, or locations.
Once you turn off all these toggles, the prominent Memories carousel at the top of your main Photos grid will completely disappear, leaving you with a clean, chronological timeline of your images.
How to Hide Specific People or Dates (Alternative)
If you actually like the Memories feature but just want to ensure specific people, pets, or dates never appear, you don’t have to disable the entire system. Instead, return to the main Memories settings page (Settings > Preferences > Memories) and select Hide people & pets or Hide dates. This allows you to selectively curate the algorithm, ensuring painful reminders are blocked while still allowing joyful memories to surface.