The simple action to use Google Photos and Google Maps that almost no one uses

Computers and devices with operating systems have used a system of files, icons and folders for decades to organize and display the user interface. Each one does it in a different way, and not everyone uses the same elements. Android, for example, does not use folders on desktops that contain files, but instead restricts this area to application shortcuts. In Spain Windows is the most used operating system on computers, and not being able to put files on the desktop shocked many at first.

But many years have passed since it came to Android and In our country it is the most used mobile operating system. Despite this, there are some functions that, although they have been on Android for a long time, are not very well known. One of them is application shortcuts.

This feature was designed to allow you to use some actions without having to go into applications, navigate through options, and execute the task. With a long press we would have access, in each application, to a series of shortcuts. In the case of Google this is the case in its main applications, and here we will see what can be done in each one.

Although Google has dozens of applications, not all of them are very well-known and not all of them are even designed for the private consumer. However, the main ones, the best known, do have the possibility of perform certain actions without having to enter them.

Google Photos. In the case of the gallery application, Google allows you to do three things. We can free up space on our phone, deleting the photos we already have in the cloud, or go see the screenshots in the app. In addition, it has the “I’m going to be lucky” button, which shows us images under a common denominator, generated randomly.

Google. The search application, formerly known as Google Search, allows you to perform two types of searches from the shortcuts, one is by text and the other is by voice.

Chrome. The web browser has two other actions. One allows you to open a new tab, in case you don’t want to look at the ones that are already open. The other does the same with an incognito window, which is much more useful because to open it you do have to go to the app’s side menu.

Files. This app has three actions. The first is Share with Nearby, Google’s system for sending files using Bluetooth and Wifi. The second is clean, which allows us to delete files that we do not use. The third is Downloads, which opens the section of this name of the file system.

Google TV. This application is like YouTube, it makes great use of shortcuts. There is one to open the Google Home TV remote. Another allows you to open the Store, another the Library and the last the My List section.

Spreadsheet. The Google app to create spreadsheets has three accesses. The first is to perform a search among the created files. The second is to create a spreadsheet with a template and the third is to do the same from a blank sheet. The rest of Google’s productivity apps have similar access.

Keep. The Google Notes app allows you to create new items. One option allows you to create a new audio list, another a New List with photo and another New text list. The last option is the one that creates a New generic list by default.

News. For those most addicted to news, this app has two shortcuts. One takes us to the Headlines. The other takes us to the Following section, where the headers that we have previously selected appear.

Clock. This app has three very normal accesses and one very strange one. The first three are used to start the Alarm, Stopwatch and Timer. The last one activates a screensaver that turns the screen black and shows the time.

Unfortunately, not all Google apps have shortcuts assigned. Some of the ones they don’t have are Google Authenticator, Google Home, Calculator, Google One, Play Games, Podcasts… As you can see, they are functions that can be very useful on a day-to-day basis, depending on whether or not those are used. apps, logically.