Google Photos has a new toggle that stops the app from laying music tracks over its auto-made Memories slideshows, and it covers every Memory at once rather than one at a time. The company describes it as a setting across all platforms, and it reaches the annual year-in-review recap as well as the smaller throwback montages.
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The rollout is only partway done. Ben Schoon of 9to5Google reported on Nov. 4 that he could not yet find the option in version 7.99 of the Android app, even though Google says it is on its way, so the switch may appear for some people days before others.
The Background music toggle path in Photos settings
Google’s help center now documents the route. The help page for featured memories tells users to open Google Photos, tap the profile picture, choose Photos settings, go to Preferences, then Memories, and turn off the item labeled Background music. A second method on the same page silences a single memory by tapping the volume icon at the bottom of it.
The new location is the one that matters for people who find the music annoying. A per-memory control means muting each montage after it has already started playing, over and over, while the global switch changes the default once. Google announced the change in a community post headed “Update: New controls for Background Music in Memories,” which is hosted on Google’s support forum. 9to5Google quotes the company as calling it a new setting across all platforms that allows disabling background music, so Android, iPhone and the web are all expected to get it. The 9to5Google report adds that the rollout is staggered, and quotes Google saying the option is on its way to the app.
The setting joins a cluster of Memories controls already on that page. Featured memories are automatically generated collections that appear in a carousel above the photo grid on Android, and Google can also build remixes, collages, animations and cinematic photos from a library. Settings under Memories let people choose which memory types appear, hide particular faces, dates or pets, and change notifications. The help page now lists background music among those preferences, with the instruction that turning it off under Memories in Settings disables it for all memories.
What stays on when the music is switched off
Turning the toggle off does not make Memories silent in every case. Videos that sit inside a Memory keep their own recorded audio, so a clip of a birthday party still plays the sound from the party. Only the extra soundtrack, the library tracks Photos adds on its own, goes away. The German outlet GoogleWatchBlog, which covered the change on Nov. 5, notes one wrinkle. A video created while the toggle is off cannot have music added to it afterward, so the choice is baked in at the time the Memory is generated. The site’s author also argues that a per-video control to add or remove audio would have been a better design than an app-wide default.
The distinction between music and sound is easy to miss. A Memory built mostly from still photos has no audio of its own, so switching the toggle off leaves it completely silent. A Memory stitched together from video clips plays whatever those clips recorded, which can include conversation and background noise, and the toggle does not touch it. People who want a silent Memory with video in it still have the per-memory volume control as a backstop. For anyone who leaves the toggle on, the soundtrack is changing too. Google refreshed the background music options at the same time, and 9to5Google says those users may hear new tracks. GoogleWatchBlog describes the expanded library as giving Memories a wider range of music to draw from.
The year-end recap and the unannounced rollout date
The recap is the annual roundup Photos builds from a person’s year. TechCrunch’s report on the 2024 recap shows it launched on Dec. 6 of that year as a set of standout moments, personal statistics and photos and videos meant to be shared, with a notification when it was ready. That coverage never mentioned music.
Both 9to5Google and GoogleWatchBlog say the global setting extends to the year-end recap. GoogleWatchBlog calls the switch a frequently requested wish from the Photos community, which fits the way Google introduced it: through a support-forum update rather than a product launch. Coverage points to that forum post as Google’s statement on the change, and the wording quoted from it here is as 9to5Google reproduced it.
What the sources do not say is when the toggle will reach every account. Google gave no date in the support post or in the coverage, and the only datapoint is that version 7.99 on Android did not show it on Nov. 4. Whether the 2026 recap will honor the setting from its first day is the open question.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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