The Windows 11 Photos app is getting an overhaul. Microsoft is rolling out an all-new Gallery, a native Editor and a redesigned Viewer, starting with Windows Insiders and with all Windows 11 users to follow before the year ends.
The Gallery pulls photos and videos from the PC, OneDrive and Apple's iCloud into one view, so the app can act as a single front end for libraries spread across three places. iCloud content arrives through Apple's iCloud for Windows app, and people who never sign in to OneDrive still get their local and iCloud pictures. Search takes plain descriptions such as "a family picnic by the lake," and a filter narrows results by who appears in a photo and where it is stored. Moments, the automatic memories feature, is described by Microsoft for photos saved in OneDrive.
Microsoft's speed figures shift depending on where they are read. Microsoft's overview says Photos launches up to 20% faster, measured against an older Windows 11 build. The Photos walkthrough breaks it down differently: the Editor launches 25% faster, and the Viewer starts 15% faster on average, with gains of up to 30% for HEIC images. Those numbers come from controlled tests on x64 and ARM64 devices against Photos version 2026.11060, and Microsoft says results vary by device.
The Editor was rebuilt from the ground up as a native WinUI 3 app and sorts its tools into Crop, Enhance, Repair and Stylize. It now keeps HDR intact through an edit and saves HEIC and WebP files in their original format, which matters for anyone editing iPhone shots on a PC. Object removal works by circling or brushing over the unwanted item, and Microsoft says an improved AI model returns higher-quality results faster than before. Relight, which lets a user place up to three colored light sources and pick presets such as golden hour, is expanding to all Windows 11 devices. The Viewer adds SVG support and an information panel with camera details, a location map when location data is available, and a color histogram.
The Photos work sits inside a wider Windows 11 update that also covers search actions, phone integration and gaming changes. The Photos rollout is staged and reaches all Windows 11 users before the year ends, per Microsoft. On supported hardware, improved Windows Search also finds photos saved in the local Pictures Library; Microsoft's linked support page describes the semantic indexing behind that search as a Copilot+ PC feature.
