Chrome May Soon Get a Feature to Add Tab Backgrounds From Google Photos

Google appears to be improving customisation on Chrome by letting users add a custom background to new tab pages. While the feature to customise the background by choosing from a list of preloaded wallpapers was spotted on the browser at the time of its last Chrome Canary release last month, the search giant has now reportedly started exploring an option to let users pick an image for the background directly from their Google Photos account. The new change has surfaced on Chromium Gerrit ahead of its public arrival. Notably, it will require users to sign in to their Google account to import a new tab background from Google Photos.

As spotted by folks at About Chromebooks, Chromium Gerrit includes an active code change development that reveals the Google Photos option for custom backgrounds on new Chrome tabs. The Gerrit entry reads, "Allow users to select one of their photos from Google Photos and set it as the NTP [new tab page] background image. Currently only supports users who are already signed in to their Google account."

A flag is already available in the Dev Channel to configure the new tab page background. However, there isn't yet an option to use the flag to add images from Google Photos. Google may enable the feature, at least for developers, sometime in the future.

Meanwhile, users on Chrome Dev v68.0.3440.25 can customise the new tab page by selecting one of the preloaded wallpapers. About Chromebooks reported about the feature to customise background on Chrome new tab pages last month. It was also spotted that a 'Daily Refresh' option in the pipeline to automatically add new backgrounds to Chrome tabs using a Backdrop server.

There is a gear cog on the bottom right of the new tab page on the recent Chrome Dev release that you need to click to bring up the 'Chrome Wallpapers' option. Clicking on this option shows the list of available wallpapers. There is also the Daily refresh toggle that could change backgrounds automatically on your new tabs on a daily basis.