How to Turn Off Music in Google Photos Memories: New Toggle

Google Photos now lets users disable the background music the app automatically layers onto Memories, the auto-generated photo and video montages that surface in the app's carousel. A new Background music toggle turns that soundtrack off entirely, rather than letting someone mute one compilation while leaving music playing on the rest.

Google said in a statement quoted by 9to5Google last week that the setting is rolling out across Android, iOS, and web. Android Police reported the same expansion, describing the toggle as reaching all three platforms.

The setting comes with a notable limitation. Google calls it a global setting, and it silences every Memory the app generates automatically, including the End of Year Recap, according to both 9to5Google and Android Police. Neither outlet describes a way to turn music off for a single Memory while keeping it on for others.

Rolling out across platforms doesn't mean every account has it yet. Google described the change as reaching all platforms, but the reporting doesn't establish which accounts, app versions, or regions currently show the toggle, a gap covered in more detail further down.

How to turn off background music in Google Photos Memories

On mobile, the reported path is Photos app, then Settings, then Preferences, then Memories, then the Background music toggle. 9to5Google and Android Police both describe that exact navigation for the Android and iOS apps. Neither outlet independently verified where the setting sits inside the web version of Photos, so web users may need to poke around the settings menu before finding it.

Flipping the toggle off does one specific job. It stops what Google calls "extra music tracks" from playing during Memories, according to 9to5Google's quote of the company's own wording. It isn't a master mute for the whole montage. If a Memory includes a video clip, that clip's original audio keeps playing normally even with the toggle switched off, per the same statement.

That distinction matters for anyone expecting total silence. A Memory built mostly from video clips with their own sound, a birthday party or a kid's recital, will still carry that audio after the toggle is off. Only the music Google layers on top disappears.

Anyone who leaves the setting turned on should expect the soundtrack itself to sound different going forward. Google refreshed its Memories music library alongside this release, so tracks playing now may not match what longtime users remember, according to 9to5Google and a report from Echo Boomer published earlier this week.

Google began adding instrumental music to some Memories in 2022, as part of a broader redesign that also introduced Cinematic Memories and a collage editor, according to a Google company blog post. That post said more than 3.5 billion Memories were being viewed each month at the time. The figure describes how the feature was used back in 2022, not how many accounts currently have access to this week's toggle, which the cited reporting doesn't quantify.

Why you can't silence just one Memory

The Background music toggle works on a strict on-or-off basis. Switching it off removes music from everything Photos generates automatically, not just whichever individual Memory someone finds annoying, per Android Police and Echo Boomer.

That includes the End of Year Recap specifically. Google's description of the 2025 Recap frames it as a shareable highlight reel built from a year's worth of photos and videos, paired with graphics and cinematic effects, with options to hide certain people or photos and regenerate the result, according to Google. That post doesn't mention a separate soundtrack control, and since Google's global-setting language explicitly covers the Recap, its music runs through the same toggle as every other Memory.

Google Photos does offer other ways to adjust individual Memories. Users can control how long videos and photos appear in a montage and add their own text overlays, per Android Police. Nothing in the cited reporting describes those editing tools extending to music, so adjusting a Memory's pacing or adding text appears to run through a separate system from the new background music toggle.

Echo Boomer reports that Google introduced the change after hearing from users who disliked having music automatically inserted into their Memories. The same report says Google is continuing to collect feedback through its usual channels to refine the feature, which suggests more granular controls could eventually follow, though nothing in current reporting confirms that's planned.

For now, the trade-off is binary: mute Google's added soundtrack across every automatic Memory and Recap, or leave it everywhere and get the refreshed track list in exchange.

Who has the toggle now, and what's still unclear

Google described the rollout as reaching all platforms, and Android Police separately reported availability across web, Android, and iOS, which suggests the change isn't confined to a single test group.

9to5Google's own testing complicates that picture. 9to5Google reported that it did not see the toggle in Android app version 7.99 at the time of its report, even though Google stated the feature was already on its way to that app. The available reporting doesn't establish whether access depends on app version, account, region, or something else, so a missing toggle right now doesn't necessarily mean anything is broken on a given phone.

To check for it, open Google Photos, go to Settings, then Preferences, then Memories, and look for Background music. If it's listed, the global trade-off described above applies the moment it's switched off. If it isn't there yet, the cited reports don't identify reinstalling the app, changing account settings, or any other workaround as a way to force it to appear. Updating to the latest version of Google Photos and checking back after future app updates is the step the current reporting actually supports, not troubleshooting the app as if something's broken.