I found a way to save Magic Eraser from Google's creepy AI slop with this simple settings change
Android Police 2026-07-14 12:00:10
Context: Google's Magic Eraser, a popular feature in Google Photos, has recently undergone a significant update that has introduced complications in its algorithm, leading to mixed results and user frustration. The update has delegated tasks to increasingly capable AI models, but users have reported messy fillers and inaccurate edits, dubbed "AI slop." A simple settings change, however, has been discovered to bypass these issues.
Key Facts
- Google's Magic Eraser operates in two distinct ways: cloud processing, which is the default for most phones, and on-device processing, used as a fallback when there's no access to the cloud.
- The recent update to Magic Eraser has introduced complications in the tool's algorithm, leading to mixed results, including messy fillers and inaccurate edits, with users reporting issues such as extra earlobes or obvious artifacts in their edits.
- Disabling the internet using airplane mode allows users to bypass the annoying new quirks when using Magic Eraser, leveraging on-device processing instead of cloud processing.
- Cloud processing is highly effective at photoshopping large areas, such as erasing a crowd of people or wiping out a grid of pesky power lines, but tends to miss when analyzing smaller, more modest areas in an image.
- The on-device processing, accessible through airplane mode, can produce more acceptable results for minor spot corrections, such as removing a bolt head from a brick wall, but results may vary depending on the complexity of the image.