Google Camera 7.5 update ditches weird folder storage for portrait photos

Google Camera, the bit of software responsible for Pixel phones’ excellent photography capabilities, will soon reduce clutter in users’ camera rolls.

Camera update 7.5 has hit Pixel phones running the Android 11 beta with a small change to how it names image files generated by the camera. Previously covered here, the short version is that Pixel phones now use the ‘PXL’ label instead of the traditional ‘IMG’ name for image files. This doesn’t change the file type, however — only the name.

Now, Android Police spotted another small tweak to files that should alleviate an annoying problem with Pixel portrait mode shots. Until Camera 7.5, the app generated a folder to hold the blurred and original photos captured when shooting in portrait mode.

While people who use Google’s Photos app didn’t have much issue with this (it doesn’t show the folders in the main camera roll), it caused issues with third-party camera apps, which would show all the separate portrait image folders. It could also be a main for people looking to back up their images manually, since copying the DCIM folder (where Camera saves pictures by default) brought along several folders for portrait images.

Camera 7.5 remedies this by saving portrait images directly to the DCIM folder. To differentiate between blurred and original portrait shots, Camera 7.5 appends the file name with ‘.PORTRAIT-01’ or ‘.PORTRAIT-02.’ The rest of the file name remains the same as other images, showing ‘PXL’ followed by the year, month, day, hour, minute and second (‘PXL_YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS.PORTRAIT-01.COVER.jpg’ is an example of the typical filename).

While a relatively minor adjustment — and one many likely won’t notice if they use Google Photos — the change should make it easier for people who use third-party camera apps or manually back up their pictures. Of course, the change to ‘PXL’ labels brings its own sorting problems, but for the most part it’s an improvement.

Source: Android Police