Last night, Microsoft announced the roll of a new update (2023.11050.2013.0) to the Photos app in Windows 11 to Insiders in the Canary and Dev Channels. This update includes some of the most requested features, improvements, and bug fixes.
First, the new Photos app now supports slideshows. You can customize your slideshow with transitions, animations, and 25 original music soundtracks. To start a slideshow, you can click on any photo or choose multiple photos.
Second, Microsoft is bringing back the timeline scrollbar to the All Photos, OneDrive, and iCloud Photos gallery views which groups photos by year and month. Using the new timeline scrollbar, you can easily jump to any point in time and find the photos you want.
Third, Microsoft is bringing back the Spot Fix feature that can remove blemishes or unwanted areas in your photo.
Other minor improvements in this update are listed below:
- Auto Enhance is now available for use without having to install the 93MB add-on.
- When importing photos from external devices, you can now drag and drop to choose the photos you want and use the quick toggle to confirm the files that have been selected.
- Hidden iCloud Photos will no longer display in the gallery.
- Fixed an issue where audio on video files is muted by default. The app now plays the audio by default and persists user settings across videos.
- Copying and pasting a photo from the Photos app into Outlook and Teams now inserts the image inline by default instead of adding an attachment.
- Multi-select photos: hold down the SHIFT key while selecting photos in the gallery now selects multiple consecutive photos in a row; holding down the CTRL key selects multiple non-consecutive photos.