Google Duo is generally thought of as a video calling app, but now Google is giving Duo a feature for sharing photos.
Duo now lets you send self-destructing photos to your friends. The update to version 56 of Google Duo brought the feature, notes Android Police, and you can access it by opening up your gallery app, selecting a photo, and tapping on Duo in the share sheet.
From there, you can edit the photo by adding text or drawing around with your fingers. You can then select up to five contacts to send the image to. When they get it, they'll see a thumbnail with the delivery status and time as well as how much time you've got left to view the photo before it disappears. That person will also have the option to call you or reply with a video message, but they can't quickly reply with a photo of their own.
There are some weird details of this feature to keep in mind before you start using it. While you can view an image you've sent, save it to your phone, or delete it, choosing to delete it doesn't actually delete it from the person you sent it to, just from your device. You also can't send multiple photos at once, instead having to send them one by one, nor can you send video you've saved. There's also no image selector in Duo right now, meaning you've got to go into your gallery app any time you want to send a self-destructing Duo photo.
It's kind of strange to see the video calling app Google Duo gain support for sending disappearing photos like Snapchat. And because this feature is so bare-bones compared to an app like Snapchat, it's not likely that many folks will drop Snapchat and begin sending their self-destructing photos using Google Duo. It is good to see Google continue to show Duo love with updates and new features, though, and perhaps we'll see this self-destructing photo feature improved upon with future updates.
