Google Photos update is now live: it fixes the drag-to-select bug on Android

Google Photos on Android just got an update that fixes the drag-to-select bug that had been stopping some people from selecting multiple photos, and the rollout is already live on the Google Play Store.

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Google says this wasn’t an intentional change, just a bug. You could still kick off multi-select in Google Photos with a long press, but once you tried dragging across the grid, the app would often scroll through your library instead of highlighting more items. Cleaning up photos turned into a tedious tap-by-tap chore.

If you’re on a Google Pixel, Samsung, or OnePlus phone, you weren’t the only one seeing it. Reports popped up across forums and social media in late July and early August 2026, and it quickly became clear this was a Google Photos problem. As people compared what was happening on their phones, some even found out for the first time that Google Photos lets you bulk-select images by dragging.

If you regularly delete screenshots, sort pictures into albums, or archive older images, this is the kind of small fix that makes a real difference. For plenty of users, it’ll probably feel more useful than this year’s desktop backup changes or newer additions like Ask Photos and Moods.

You can grab the latest Google Photos update for Android now from the Google Play Store.