Google Photos

General Chat
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I currently use the flickr app to back up all my photos & videos. They are now beginning to charge for this service so was thinking of using google photos instead. Anyone use this at all? Would you recommend?

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I use it and have had no issues whatsoever.

Can recommend.

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Very happy with it also. They don’t store the ‘Original Quality’ versions for free, but it’s absolutely fine at ‘High Quality’.

Works well on iOS, Android and on web browsers.

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4

Thanks, does that mean the ‘high quality’ won’t be suitable for printing?

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I use it on iOS and love it!

Here’s a good comparison between original and high quality: https://www.phonearena.com/news/Google-Photos-High-quality-vs-Original-Whats-the-difference-and-should-you-care_id93938

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6

Thank you Andy, That’s really useful!

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7

I think you have to be aware that the free plan is not suitable as a ‘back up’, especially if you have shoot RAW photos. But even if you just have JPEGs, should you loose your phone or the originals or whatever, you will not recover the same files from the free Google Photos. You will get re-compressed files. Sometimes the difference will not be noticeable, sometimes it might be. For some, the discarded information might affect your ability to edit the photos. A true back up will store actual copies of your photos/videos.

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8

I suppose it might not be what you’re looking for, but you might want to look into backing photos up manually to a physical drive.

Personally I use an external hard drive, just so I don’t have any worries of running out of room, but depending on how many photos/videos you shoot you could just use a USB drive or similar. External hard drives can be picked up relatively low-cost, especially if you buy second-hand.

It’s pretty quick and easy too. Once a month I connect my phone to my laptop, and move all my media across to the hard drive, and let it do the rest.

That way there’s no worries of quality loss, security breaches, subscription costs, etc. But really, it’s down to personal preference - I know cloud backups can be pretty handy for various reasons.

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9

I use Google Photos because of its several useful features like auto animations. reminders of old photos, auto albums etc… but for original quality photos I use Amazon photos which is included in prime membership. So if you have Amazon Prime give that a go.

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10

This is my set up too!

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For those worried about quality, if you save your pictures on iOS using the HEIC format then Google Photos does no alter them with ‘Unlimited storage’.

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I’ve used Google Photos for several years now, and absolutely love it. The interface is brilliant and having quick access to memories from years ago is a bit of a superpower!

That said, I do keep my own backup of photos in a personal OneDrive. Having the photos in the format my phone stored them is something I like.

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Also worth checking out Amazon… if you have Prime.

My phone backups to Amazon Photo’s

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I have used Google Photos since it was Picasa! I’m happy with the “high quality” setting but I do have all of my pictures backed up on my laptop and two hard drives. Although I have Prime and Amazon Photos I’ve never warmed to keeping stuff on the Amazon Drive service even as a backup.

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Google Photos is incredible. The high quality setting doesn’t make much difference - I think it produces 16MP (max) photos. Absolutely fine for printing huge posters!

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16

Sure, quality may be fine, but it’s not a backup, which was the original question. A backup is an exact duplicate of the original.

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Google photos is amazing! :tada:

I love the simplicity, it combines set it and forget it with powerful integration :grin: I can share photos I’ve recently taken in an email in writing on a different device & I love getting reminders of “that thing I did last year” :yum:

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Technically correct, though I’d say most people would consider a high quality photo to be a reasonable “backup”. You can always store in original quality - Google Storage space is very cheap these days. If you have a Pixel phone, you get original quality backups for free.

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