Google Photos' feature to fast forward and rewind videos has been silently pulled

Looks like Google has silently removed a video-related feature from its Photos service. The functionality in question allowed you to perform fast forward and rewind operations on your videos.

For the uninitiated, Google rolled out the feature last year in March, as part of Photos app version v1.16. Earlier, both the buttons – fast forward and rewind – appeared on tapping the screen during an ongoing playback (as can be clearly seen in the following image)

Image via: AndroidPolice

We stumbled upon a couple of threads on the official Photos forum, where some users brought into focus that the fast forward and rewind buttons are no longer available in the app. One of the users even shared a screenshot to support their claim:

We can also confirm at our end that the buttons are no more available while playing a video on both Android and iOS – only the play/pause button shows up now. Following is the screen shot that we took on our iPhone 6s, clearly showing that the buttons are now gone.

It could be a glitch, but it’s more likely that the feature has been pulled. As for available workaround(s), you can try manually dragging the blue dot on the video progress bar and see if serves the purpose.

Google hasn’t even officially acknowledged the development, let alone providing a reason behind it. If you have been using this feature and are now observing it as gone, keep a tab here, as we’ll keep you updated in case the company confirms this move and/or brings in a substitute.

Source 1 | Source 2