I've been using Google Photos for as many years as I've been using Android phones. It's my primary photo app, and I've never really had major issues other than low storage, which many users have problems with.

Although I would've loved more space, I changed one habit to stop reaching the free cloud storage limit on Google Photos. I had been putting up with another problem that originated from the way I used Google Photos.

The worst part of it was that I didn't realize it was an issue until I discovered its solution a few days ago. Unlike in the case of storage constraints, I didn't need to change any settings for this.

All I had to do was follow a different way of doing it, and it made all the difference. I changed one Google Photos habit, and finding old photos became much easier. Here is what and how I did it.

I finally started using Google Photos' search feature the way it should be

Finding an old photo has become a lot easier since then

I love Google Photos' Memories feature. Even if I've forgotten about a certain event, it automatically pulls photos from past years taken on the same day.

It reduces my reliance on the search feature, but the ability to find photos is still there. What if I want a specific photo rather than waiting for Memories to highlight it?

This is when you need the search feature. Don't even think about remembering the title of the shot you took to find it. The search option is much more capable than that.

I didn't use the search button this way. I didn't use it at all. Instead, I used Google Photos' intelligent scroll bar to quickly jump to the year I captured the shot and then spend time scrolling again to find it.

It sounds stupid, I know. But I've seen many people trying to find their old photos only by scrolling in the Google Photos app. It's more common than you think.

However, common doesn't necessarily mean that it's the best trick to follow. Something that allows you to find your old photos a lot quicker is actually the search button, the one that I neglected the most in the app.

Google Photos' search button can find photos by keywords, descriptions, objects, people, and location. So, you can type "beach" in the search, and Google Photos will surface all the shots that show a beach.

This is how I found a group photo with my friends and professors from a college excursion. We had a great time on that excursion while learning a lot along the way.

So, how did I quickly find it using the search option? It was really simple: I typed "group photo" in the search bar, and it showed all images that matched that description.

I have only 10 group photos on my phone, and that also helped spot the right one quickly. But even if I have many such photos, it's still easier to find a specific photo this way as compared to scrolling through all your photos.

It worked so well that I had to break another Google Photos habit

A small change, but a surprisingly big difference

It sounds like a small feature, but it's genuinely handy. However, the biggest challenge was getting used to it and making sure to use the trick instead of resorting to scrolling through photos.

It was certainly not easy, especially when it meant replacing something I had been doing out of habit for years.

However, I didn't try to make the search button trick my habit. That would've surely backfired. Instead, I took it as something fun to play with.

After finding that specific group photo, I continued typing random keywords, and every time, Google Photos showed matching results, containing memories I almost forgot about.

The habit formed naturally because I wasn't consciously trying to make it one. It's still hard to resist that scroll sometimes, but I'm sure I'll get better at this because I can't ignore the payoff.

I wish I had changed this Google Photos habit years ago

What I did wrong was treating Google Photos like a regular photo gallery. I didn't realize how much I was missing until I stopped treating Google Photos only as a place to store photos.

This change in attitude helped me find two hidden gems in Google Photos within a single week: first, the Control Backup quality option, and then the search button trick.

While I regret not doing it sooner, I'm excited to see what else I've been missing. In the meantime, I'll keep using Google Photos with a curious mind.