Google Photos: How to select photos by date without requesting every page?

[anoduck]

The new changes to the Google photos API is confusing. Using the Photos Library API is no longer an option since its access is to be reduced, which leaves only one option, The Photos Picker API.

The problem is, the Photos Picker doesn't provide the same functionality as the Photos Library once did. In particular, it relies upon the opening of a browser and having the user select images by hand. Which kinda destroys the purpose of writing a program to automate this process in the first place. One could probably request page after page of photos, and filter from there, but this is unnecessarily resource expensive.

Is there something I am missing or misunderstanding here? How is one supposed to select photos by date programmatically without having to cycle through every page and filter out from there?