Even with a native app, I would still rather cast from my phone. Navigating albums and hundreds of photos with a remote just seems like a major chore.
If you have an Android tv Box then you should just be able to cast pictures amd movies to the tv
The same place a native youtube app is, in our dreams, this is semi-abandonware, but this sub full of apologists for google lacustre product will come a set me strait.
Plex has a photo viewer, probably the best solution for viewing private collections of photos, home movies and music.
The google photos app is there on the Playstore but I'm not sure wth it does, just a blank screen with a count of 0. Using a browser (chrome personally) you can go to the photos.google.com to browse photos, if you have folders setup you can play slideshows but videos don't auto play/switch. It is a mess, I agree.
I doubt there will be one until proper multi account support is added to the OS. It doesn't make sense to make your private photos publicly accessible at all times and putting it behind a login prompt each time kills usability.
Casting photos works great.
yes.
you can sideload the existing app and it does alright with dpad, for now.
[bleh my post got eaten. re-commenting]
Not a solution but a suggestion.
I like to download the google home app and cast my screen to show photos on my phones google photo app, pretty useful as i can realtime pinch and zoom onto parts of photos.
Also it appears it kind of "seperatly" plays videos, it doesnt just cast your phone screen playing the video which would result in horrid quality and audio
If you want a native app look no further than https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cmpsoft.MediaBrowser Work in pure Android and LeanBack - accesses most sources and allows for good browsing. Nice bonus is that it can act as a dreamtime source..
If only "OK Google" worked on the Mi Box. They haven't updated the Google search app in over a year on Android TV.
Even after all that complete BS they spewed at Google I/O about getting Google Assistant on Android TV it was just more BS.
I'm not sure I'd want my photos browsable on the TV by anyone in the house.