Turn Your Google Nest Hub Into a Family Photo Frame (With Photos From This Week, Years Ago)
A Google Nest Hub on the kitchen counter can be the most-looked-at picture frame in your house. Out of the box, though, it tends to show a random mix: last week's parking-lot photo, a screenshot, a blurry shot of the dog's ear. With about fifteen minutes of setup, we can turn it into something much better: a frame that keeps your family front and center and brings back photos from this same time of year, years ago.
Here's how we set ours up.
Step 1: Get the family into one live album
The Nest Hub can only show what Google Photos gives it, so the real work happens in Google Photos. The best tool there is a live album: an album built from the people and pets Google Photos recognizes, which fills itself every time a new photo of them arrives.
In Google Photos, make sure Face Groups is turned on (Photos settings, then Preferences, then Face Groups). Without it, Google can't recognize anyone.
Open the People & pets row in the Collections tab and give names to the faces you care about. Merge duplicates while you're there: Grandma at 40 and Grandma at 80 often start out as two different people.
Create a new album and choose Select people & pets. Pick the kids, grandkids, parents and the dog, then tap Confirm.
Name it something you'll recognize on the Hub, like "Family Frame."
From now on, every new photo of those people lands in the album on its own. A live album holds up to 20,000 photos, and you can remove any photo you don't want on the counter for all to see.
Tip: Make one live album per household or branch of the family ("Our Family," "The Cousins"), so you can switch what the frame shows when company comes over.
Step 2: Point the Nest Hub at your albums
Open the Google Home app on your phone.
Touch and hold your Nest Hub's tile, then tap Settings, then Photo Frame.
Choose Google Photos and tick your family live album.
Add your Favorites too. Starring a photo in Google Photos is the fastest way to send a great shot to the frame.
Leave Recent highlights on only if you like seeing new photos right away. It's picked automatically and can't be edited, so it's where most of the screenshots and receipts sneak in.
You can also make these changes on the Hub itself: swipe up from the bottom of the screen, tap Settings, then Photo Frame.
Step 3: Tune the settings most people never open
Below the album list (sometimes under More settings) are three choices that make a big difference:
Personal photo curation: Set this to All albums. Google then skips photos with poor image quality and near-duplicates, so you don't see eleven nearly identical shots of the same birthday cake. Your Favorites are never filtered out.
Personal photo data: Leave this on. The Hub shows the date, album and place under each photo, and "July 2009, Cannon Beach" is half the fun. (Google lists this option for the US only.)
Slideshow speed: Try one minute per photo. Faster feels busy and uses more of your home internet; slower gives people time to walk over and say "I remember that day."
Step 4: Bring back "this week, years ago"
This is the part families love most, and it takes a little more thought, because the Photo Frame setting has no "on this day" switch. There are two good ways to get there.
Option A: Let Google Photos Memories do it
Google Photos already builds Memories, including the "years ago" collections at the top of the app. The Nest Hub can play them:
Say "Hey Google, show my photo memories." The first time, you'll be asked to opt in.
Memories only come from the first Google account linked to the Hub, and personal results need to be on for that account (Google Home app, your Hub's settings, then Recognition & sharing).
Shape what Memories shows in Google Photos under Photos settings, then Preferences, then Memories. You can hide or show less of certain people and pets, and hide date ranges you'd rather not relive.
Memories is easy, but it's Google's choice of photos, and it doesn't run as the everyday background slideshow.
Option B: A "This Month in Our Family" album (our favorite)
For a frame that quietly shows this time of year all month long, build it yourself:
In Google Photos, search for the month and a year, such as "November 2012." Repeat for each year you have.
Pick the best family photos from each year and add them to an album called "This Month in Our Family."
Select that album in the Hub's Photo Frame settings, alongside or instead of your live album.
On the first of each month, swap the photos for the new month. Ten minutes with a cup of coffee is plenty.
Now the frame shows Thanksgivings from 1998, 2006 and 2019 in the same week, which is exactly when everyone wants to see them.
Why old photos often go missing from the frame
Here's the catch we see all the time in the studio: scanned photos usually carry the date they were scanned, not the date they were taken. That 1978 Christmas morning, scanned last spring, tells Google Photos it's from April 2026. It will never show up in "years ago" Memories, and a search for "December 1978" won't find it.
Before you upload scans, set each photo's date to when it was actually taken. Even a best guess, like "Summer 1978," puts it in the right season. The same goes for faces: Google can recognize people in older photos too, so once your scans are in, check People & pets for younger versions of familiar faces and name them.
Tip: If you write dates on the backs of prints, use a soft, photo-safe pencil. We like the STABILO-All Aquarellable, which writes on almost any paper without bleeding through.
A quick checklist
Face Groups on, family members named and merged
A live album of the people and pets you love
Favorites added to the frame; Recent highlights optional
Personal photo curation set to All albums
Personal photo data on, slideshow around one minute
Memories turned on, or a monthly "This Month in Our Family" album
Scanned photos dated to when they were taken
Google changes these menus from time to time, so labels on your screen may differ a little. If something has moved, the Photo Frame section of your Hub's settings is still the place to start.
Let's get the old photos on the frame
If the best family photos are still in shoeboxes, albums or on old phones, the Nest Hub can't show them yet. At The Picture Org(anizer), we scan prints, slides and negatives, set dates to when the photos were taken, and organize them so they're ready for Google Photos and your frame. Book an appointment at our Sammamish or Depoe Bay studio, or send your photos by mail, and we'll help you bring those years back to the kitchen counter.
