How to turn your Android phone into a digital picture frame

If you have more photos in your Google Photos app than you know what to do with, why not start showing your phone? With a few simple steps, you can use your Android phone’s screen saver feature to turn your phone screen into a digital picture frame while charging.

This works especially well for phones with wireless charging (so you can view your photos with the phone backed up on a charger), but it will work with any kind of charging mode or if you connect your phone to a dock. It’s built right into the operating system, and it’s a nice and easy way to show off some of your favorite images.

I used a Motorola Moto G Stylus (2022) for the steps below, but the process is very similar to a Samsung or Pixel phone. You must have the photos you want to display in a Google Photos album.

• Go to Settings> Display.
• Press Advanced to reveal more menu items (if needed), and select Screensaver.
• Press Current screen saver and select the Google Photos app icon. This will take you back to the main screen of the main screen. From there, press gear icon next to Current screen saver.
• From here, you can access some preferences, such as turning the animated zoom effect on or off. To choose which photos the screen saver should display, select your Google Account to display a list of your Google Photos albums. (You can also see a list of the albums you have on your device.) Check the ones you want to include.
• Navigate back to the main screen of the main screen, and press When to start to select when the screen saver should turn on – either during charging, docking, or both.
• Navigate back to the main screen of the main screen, and press Start now (or Preview) to see what it will look like.

You are done! Here are a few extra tips for your brand new, free digital photo frame:

• Obviously, vertically oriented images will look best.
• Select images where the subject is centered, otherwise they may be cropped right out of the image.
• If you have a lot of horizontally oriented photos, it will help to turn off the “photo fill screen”, but your photos will look quite small on your screen.

The screen saver always starts with the first image in the album and continues to display them in the order in which the album is sorted. If it sounds a little too repetitive, you can create an album that updates automatically. Here’s how you do it:

• Launch a new album in Google Photos. In the app, tap library tab at the bottom of the screen and select the plus sign for a new album. Or select an existing album by going to the same library tab and selecting an album.
• Give your new album a title and tap under add photos Choose people and pets. Select the items you want to include in the album. Google will automatically identify them in new photos uploaded to Google Photos and add them to your album.
• If you are using an existing album, tap the three dots in the upper right corner, select Optionsand below Automatically add photos, tap the plus sign and select who you want to include. Check Also add existing images If you want.
• New photos appear at the beginning of the album, so they will be the first to appear when your screen saver starts.