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As part of the ongoing story, microsoft has quietly begun adding a second Photos app to your Windows 11 PC: OneDrive Photos (beta), whose key addition seems to be an unwanted demand to know who the people are in your life…and a reduction in what made the original Windows Photos a critical part of my workflow.
According to the latest update, it’s just there: a stripped-down version of the Photos app, but with a special “People” section that asks you to identify everyone in your photos. It’s on my PC, and it might be on yours! To my knowledge, Microsoft hasn’t unveiled OneDrive Photos, and it’s not part of the Windows Insider program.
The report highlights that interestingly, Microsoft said that the fresh OneDrive Photos app should only be seen by Windows users enrolled in the Windows Insider program.
As part of the ongoing story, “This patch arrived through a OneDrive patch rather than a separate install. “OneDrive Photos is already generally available today, and we’re now previewing its fresh gallery as ‘Photos (Preview)’ for Windows Insiders in the Experimental channel,” the publisher said, in a statement provided by a publisher representative.
Industry observers note that “Microsoft does not use these facial scans to train its AI models, and all data is deleted after 30 days. We will gather feedback from Insiders and continue to iterate on the experience before rolling it out more broadly.”. “Face grouping is visible only to the account owner and is never shared; users also have the ability to opt out at any time,” Microsoft added.
In a fresh development, (It is also installed on my work laptop in non-Preview version. ~Brad the editor.) I’ve asked Microsoft for further comment. The PC that OneDrive Photos installed upon is not enrolled in a Windows Insider program, however.
As part of the ongoing story, it’s not a link to an app on the Microsoft Store; it simply downloaded by itself on to my PC, and to others as well. You can try searching for it on Windows Search to see if it’s on your PC, as well. OneDrive Photos, as noticed by Windows Current, apparently just showed up out of the blue on some machines.
As part of the ongoing story, here’s what they are:. OneDrive Photos and the regular Photos app share many similarities, but OneDrive Photos has a stripped-down menu that lists Moments, Gallery, People, Albums, Favorites, and This PC.
As part of the ongoing story, it’s a quick and handy way to edit a photo: crop it, use AI to edit out some dust or an inadvertent detail, or pull out an image from its background for a specific purpose. Microsoft has actually removed a lot of those editing capabilities in the fresh app, stripping down OneDrive Photos to a subset of those editing apps and streamlining the interface. I’ve always used the traditional Windows Photos app as a very streamlined productivity tool.
In a fresh development, a subset of those editing functions remains within OneDrive Photos, helping suggest that maybe the Photos app is too complicated? It’s unclear. Photos also contains a shortcut to Image Creator, where you can edit and even create image using AI.
According to the latest update, and that starts with the People tab. In any showcase, by downplaying the editing aspect and making photo identification much more prominent, Microsoft is making the conversation around OneDrive Photos as much about privacy as productivity.
In a fresh development, people collects faces of people you’ve snapped photos of over the years, or whose face has shown up in screenshots or in something else you’ve shared or put into OneDrive. (Expect faces of political figures and/or sports stars next to photos of Grandma.). People is a little surprising, in that suddenly there is suddenly a number of faces staring at you.
As part of the ongoing story, it then asks you for whatever name you’d like to attach to their face. You can then choose to search for photos by that face. OneDrive Photos appears to pluck out the most common person in your photos by count, so expect a lot of family and friends to be grouped at the top.
Industry observers note that or you can simply ignore Microsoft’s requests entirely. OneDrive Photos suffers from the same limits as the recognition in other photos apps, namely that it struggles to associate baby photos with the same person as a child or teenager. A button to “merge photos” solves that problem — and likely provides some very valuable information to Microsoft’s classification engine. You can also highlight an indexed face or hide it entirely, such as for a detested ex. OneDrive Photos doesn’t seem to care what name you attach to a photo, or whether you do so; you can simply group photos by that particular face.
The report highlights that that capability remains, along with a little tally of how many photos it found matching the description. You can also use more specific terms like “white car” or “license plate.” That’s never concerned me. The conventional Photos app, as well as OneDrive Photos, has allowed you to search for specific scenes for years: “beach,” for example.
According to the latest update, when Microsoft wants me to identify those faces, though, it adds a layer of creepiness. I really don’t mind Photos pulling out specific faces and allowing me to search for them.
According to the latest update, a photo-identification app is another story. And I’ve noticed that the traditional Windows Photos app seems to be headed in that direction, too. Put another way, a photo-editing app is a useful tool.
As part of the ongoing story, (My “Identity” section remains blank and unpopulated, but I don’t have any photos or screenshots of my driver’s license or birth certificate, either.) To that, Photos has added Notes, Receipts, and Screenshots, which identifies and stores them. (I should have a ton of receipts stored over the years, but it only found a few.). Windows Photos lacks a “People” section., but it now includes an “Identity” section instead.
As part of the ongoing story, the Photos “Identity” section doesn’t ask for a PIN code or biometric identifier, either, as the Personal Vault does. (The easiest way to access Personal Vault in my experience has been from the OneDrive mobile app, and the “Files” section.). I’m still a little surprised to see that neither Photos nor OneDrive Photos includes a link to the “Personal Vault,” the encrypted file store within OneDrive that can be used to store the stuff you really don’t want others to see, including personal information, legal documents, and spicier photos.
According to the latest update, google’s own Photos app goes even further: identifying faces (with permission) and asking to organize photos by face, too. To be fair, Microsoft isn’t the only storage provider asking for details of my life.
The report highlights that that feels much more invasive than what Microsoft is putting out there. As you can see from the screenshot above, Google apparently wants to begin putting together a family tree, based upon images of my relatives.
As part of the ongoing story, simply pushing it to user PCs without permission or even discussion is a bad move, given Microsoft’s history of push advertising. That’s going to rile up the “Microsoft is watching you!!1!!” crowd. And they’re going to have a valid, viable point. At least you can totally ignore OneDrive Photos and its pleas for more information. It’s really not clear what Microsoft hopes to accomplish with OneDrive Photos.
The report highlights that neither Microsoft nor Google needs to know every aspect of your personal life, no matter how useful the tool. As always, consider what you’re trading off for convenience’s sake.
The report highlights that he has authored over 3,500 articles for PCWorld alone, covering PC microprocessors, peripherals, and Microsoft Windows, among other topics. Mark has written for publications including PC Magazine, Byte, eWEEK, Highly adopted Science and Electronic Buyers' News, where he shared a Jesse H. Neal Award for breaking news. He recently handed over a collection of several dozen Thunderbolt docks and USB-C hubs because his office simply has no more room. Mark has written for PCWorld for the last decade, with 30 years of experience covering technology.