Files by Google is playing with a dynamic new look for your recent files (APK teardown)

Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
TL;DR Google appears to be prepping a new mechanic for the 'Recents' UI in its Files app.
A new update reveals Files by Google testing out the same sort of dynamic carousel we see in Google Photos.
No Google app ever stays the same forever, and while some get much more attention than others, on a long enough timeline the odds of any UI remaining unchanged drop to zero. Last summer we saw Google rethinking its approach to the 'Recents' view in its Files app, swapping out the static categories for a scrollable carousel. Now we're taking a look at what could be the next evolution of this interface.
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An APK teardown helps predict features that may arrive on a service in the future based on work-in-progress code. However, it is possible that such predicted features may not make it to a public release.
Google loves this kind of interface in its apps, and we've already got carousels on the mind after checking out some recent progress on a heart-shaped reimagining for Google Photos. But even without that little WIP flourish, the Photos carousel already behaves a bit differently than the one we currently have in Files by Google. While the thumbnails in Files are all fixed, in Photos we see them animated to resize for emphasis as we scroll past.
Diving into the new 1.7388.754580060.0-release build of Files by Google, we were able to activate that same sort of dynamically resizing carousel that we know from apps like Photos and Messages.
That's the existing interface on the left, and if Google decides to move forward with this change, on the right there is the new carousel behavior that we could expect to get in its stead.
Beyond just the resizing animation, we could also see a slight tweak to the layout of the thumbnails themselves, sliding the three-dot overflow menu up top.
Admittedly, this is a pretty minor tweak, but it's clearly one that Google currently favors, so we probably shouldn't be surprised to see this look popping up everywhere it possibly can. While it's not yet publicly viewable in Files by Google, we wouldn't bet on that being the case for much longer.
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