photos, backups & the cloud

I had a similar quandary. I use Picasa (went out of support years ago), but with the photo folders sitting on Google drive so they sink automatically. I use Picasa to make albums etc, windows folders to organise the files, and it all stays backed up on the cloud.

Interested to hear alternative solutions though.

Edit: all this means I basically don't use Google photos at all, but it seemed really quite rubbish when I tried it

Drop Box is probably the best 'not connected to other infrastructure' option. It also works like your Windows/Mac normal folder systems do.

But if you are in the Apple system then iCloud really is the default option. They make it so easy. And it costs buttons for a decent amount of storage.

But as with everything always keep a hard copy too!

For work photos - shouldn't they provide a solution as they are disabling the USB option? They also may have something to say about where files are stored.

Possibly not relevant to your requirements but I also used to back up everything to my PC and carefully stored everything in a folder structure. I also used Picasa. However, now I just use Google Photos and the built-in Search function. Being able to search by date, subject etc just works so well.

Oh, work use OneDrive. So I could back up / transfer photos to that. And keep Google Drive for my stuff, but still accessible on PC.

We have separate work mobile phones - and with that separate gmail accounts to run each device.

My work phone, and of course the connected Google account, is only for work. All the data is connected to that account, never personally. The data is deleted when someone leaves our organisation - we ask for the screenshot of an account and data being deleted and a factory reset.

Personal phones are never used for work - they are your provider contract, your own gmail or other account etc. Only work use is an emergency to phone the boss...

Sorts it all out easily.

OneDrive on your phone will automatically upload as soon as you take a photo, or, at least, it does on my non-work phone and OneDrive account. Maybe worth investigating this.

To add: the nice bit about google photos is how easy to find photos by place, face, item, colour and more - and really easy to pop them into organised folders. Of course all this can be done on device or by logging into photos.google.com as images all automagically back up...

Oh, work use OneDrive. So I could back up / transfer photos to that. And keep Google Drive for my stuff, but still accessible on PC.

I don't know how you'd set your phone up to send work photos to One Drive and personal photos to Google Drive?

You may need two phones as Matt says above.

By the way - we do our 'two phones' due to safeguarding. Which in England is now becoming a race to put in place as much as possible, so we are actually going back to buying staff separate cameras for work. Schools are increasingly banning any mobile device in school.

Some staff have commented that although the camera is a pain, it does force them to sort photos asap and not take a bajillion images 'in case', of which two are any good.

Perhaps if it is formal record keeping such as building inspection, a camera with wifi is the way forward too?

If you're Android, then getting your head around Google Photos in the way to go. Auto backup from the phone and then just use Albums there like you would folders. Takes seconds to group select a set of images and assign to an album. The search function works pretty well if you lose something, but isn't flawless TBH.

FWIW, I go belt and braces (even though I'm just a hobbyist shutterbug)...

Google Photos (auto backup from phones, manual upload from camera)
Manual upload to Flickr for cloud backup (just because I've been there for ages).
Archive everything to an external HD.

Any decent cloud-based solution would work instead of Flickr in a similar system though - DropBox, Amazon Photos, Drive, etc.

@colournoise and others... I hear what you're saying, but if Google photos can not recognize the existing folder structure I have then I think it will prove unusable without a whole lot of time. Am I missing something?

It seems that OneDrive has some flexibiliy to manually select folders or sub-folders for back up. I think that might be a good solution because it will sync the photos that I choose. It also has a feature to auto send all photos to OneDrive, but I think that might make sorting and deleting a bit more tedious...

I'm going to try OneDrive a bit.

I hear what you’re saying, but if Google photos can not recognize the existing folder structure I have then I think it will prove unusable without a whole lot of time. Am I missing something?

Honestly it is not slow.

- on phone, you can click and select all the images you need to (including a tick for any photo taken that day) and just create a new Album and name as you wish.
- wait for the phone to back up (I set mine only to wifi, but you can do it on mobile data 'live' as it were) and then login to photos.google.com on a computer. Same select the images (shift works to select many at once) and again pop in a new Album which you name as you wish.

I could do a day of photos in under a minute. If there are a few Albums per day, then maybe a minute+ per Album.

Done.

timely thread, i keep getting the 'low storage' warning with a prompt to pay for more storage.  this usually results in me going through all my photos trying to find and delete video files that i dont need any more.

just now i accepted its offer to clear up 9Gb of storage, promising that it wont lose the photos.  no idea how it does it, but ive still got them in google photos, but loads have disappeared from phone gallery which is baffling me.

i realise that obviously the more photos i take then the harder this will be, so im on the verge of paying for extra storage.  but.....as mentioned up there ^^^ ive always been wary of being totally committed to google and tying my photos up with them for ever.

is this the way to go do you think?  pay google for more storage then just snap away?

is it easy to back up every single photo to a portable HD for safe-keeping?

thanks

is this the way to go do you think?  pay google for more storage then just snap away?

it’s less than £2/month for 100gb isn’t it? Surely the convenience & lack of hassle is worth that?! Just don’t get all the soul-searching 🤷‍♂️😂

yes

it’s less than £2/month for 100gb isn’t it? Surely the convenience & lack of hassle is worth that?! Just don’t get all the soul-searching 🤷‍♂️😂

its not the cost, more the acceptance that im signing all my photos up to a company that now has a bit of a hold on me.  i suppose they already have tho when i think about it.

ok, a repeat of my last question, how easy is it to back everything up to a HD?  a simple click or two?

thanks

Nothing to stop you transferring to another cloud provider in the future. 🤷‍♂️

Yeah a lot of external USB drives (Seagate, etc) will come pre-loaded with backup software these days. Not that I’ve actually used it but I imagine they make it pretty painless.

as feared, just cant seem to back it up.  even using 'takeout' and deselecting everything, then only selecting the photos and albums, it just seems to download a few 'hangout' conversations for some strange reason.

ive too many google photos/albums to do it manually, so any other suggestions anyone?

ta

just a bump on this if anyones got a solution please?

been trying to work out how to save my google photos (and album structures) to my external HD, but i just cant find a way of doing it.

ive looked at the suggested solutions on google, but none of them work for me, including the 'takeout' suggestion.  anyone here backup their GP to an external drive, and if so what method do you use?

thanks

This probably isn't very helpful, as I'm completely guessing about how Google Photos works (been lurking on this thread as I also need to sort out my photo storage, and was thinking GP is the way to go), so apologies in advance...

Does GP not allow you to sync a local copy (maybe via Google Drive - is there some overlap?) via a local application? In which case you could point it at your external HD as storage, presumably.

Does GP not allow you to sync a local copy (maybe via Google Drive – is there some overlap?) via a local application? In which case you could point it at your external HD as storage, presumably.

must admit im baffled by drive, photos, google home, google one etc and how they all link in together.

im sure many moons ago that photos were actually listed within 'my drive' albeit in folders named after the date created rather than what you name them within GP, but even they dont seem to be there now.  if i go to 'drive' theres no photos folder in there now, just a few random folders that i created years ago.

thanks

must admit im baffled by drive, photos, google home, google one etc and how they all link in together.

Same.

Just had a quick look through the Google help pages, but didn't really come up with anything. You can export stuff (I think this is the "takeout" thing) and you can choose just to export photos, which will give you a zip or series of zips you can download, which may or may not be preferable for backing up. You can also send them to Google Drive (which you could have living on your external HD to sync automatically), but presumably that then uses more storage space. You can get it to do it regularly as well.

It all seems to be working on the basis that the photos on GP are your "master" copy, whereas I want to have a real actual local files as a master and sync them to GP. It's putting me off a bit.

@sadexpunk not a Google Photos user but turns out I have some in there from a client job years ago for whatever reason, so I tried Takeout and downloaded them very easily, so I can only assume you're doing something wrong maybe 🤷‍♂️ (your photos are definitely still there in GP and you haven't accidentally deleted them??)

as feared, just cant seem to back it up. even using ‘takeout’ and deselecting everything, then only selecting the photos and albums, it just seems to download a few ‘hangout’ conversations for some strange reason.

ive too many google photos/albums to do it manually, so any other suggestions anyone?

ta

How long are you giving it to back up?
Are you using the Google Photos App, not some strange bundled with the phone app?
Have you background data enabled for Photos App?
Are you on wifi - and is that decent upload speed?
What phone / Android Version etc are you on?

You may find the upload is veeeeery slow as it will be wifi and many images - as long as you have set you photos to backup in the Google Photos App on your phone then all the photos will eventially back up - just leave the app open and phone unlocked/active (again, some phones have data settings to stop background data use, so when it locks it stops backing up etc).

To export / save, the easiest way is to go to photos.google.com and select the photos you want - download straight into whichever physical drive you want to. (Cannot download to another virtual drive).

so I tried Takeout and downloaded them very easily, so I can only assume you’re doing something wrong maybe 🤷‍♂️ (your photos are definitely still there in GP and you haven’t accidentally deleted them??)

how many photos?  i have around 18Gb worth, so i changed the default size from 2Gb to 50Gb to ensure all would be selected, and im following the process from the takeout 'how to'.  it all seems to be working up until i look at what its actually downloaded, which is just a few random 'hangout' conversations from years ago.  weird.

How long are you giving it to back up?
Are you using the Google Photos App, not some strange bundled with the phone app?
Have you background data enabled for Photos App?
Are you on wifi – and is that decent upload speed?
What phone / Android Version etc are you on?

As long as it takes to say its completed.
Im using GP on my laptop, not my phone, so no app, just signed in to my GP account
Yes on decent wifi
Using chrome, tried on both an old macbook, plus my work windows 365 laptop.

thanks

how many photos?  i have around 18Gb worth, so i changed the default size from 2Gb to 50Gb to ensure all would be selected, and im following the process from the takeout ‘how to’.  it all seems to be working up until i look at what its actually downloaded, which is just a few random ‘hangout’ conversations from years ago.

as you can see, still struggling, its just not working for me.  thought i'd got somewhere with it splitting up into 2 downloads, one of them just shy of 50Gb, the other 18Gb.  seems about right for the photos ive got altho id expect them to be a bit smaller if zipped, but hey ho.

both start downloading fine, get part way then i get the above.  'failed - needs authorisation'.  from who ive absolutely no idea.

Just taking a closer look at this myself (started the free "Google One" trial).

To answer the discussion up-thread, as the name suggests, the storage you get with Google One is shared across Gmail, Drive, etc.

Backing up via Drive might be an option for you @sadexpunk?

From Google help:

Upload from Drive for desktop
Option 1: Set up Google Drive for desktop
On your computer, download and install Google Drive for desktop.
Open Google Drive for desktop  .
Sign in to your Google Account.
To learn how to set your preferences, select Take tour.To take the tour at any time later, select Help     What's new.

Option 2: Add folders from your computer
Open Google Drive for desktop  .
Select Open preferences   Add folder.
Select the folder that you want to back up to Google Photos.
Add a tick mark next to 'Back up to Google Photos'.
Select Done   Save.

How Google Photos works with Google Drive for desktop
If they're backed up to Google Photos, photos and videos removed from your computer stay in Google Photos.
If you remove a photo or video from Google Photos, it isn't removed from Google Drive or your computer.
We recommend that you back up photos and videos to Google Photos. Backing up to both Google Photos and Google Drive stores copies of the photos and videos in Drive. This can slow your upload time and uses more storage.

Those instructions are obviously for backing up photos on your PC to Photos, but I assume it will sync the other way too - could be wrong though.

The points at the end are a bit of a bummer for me - I'd like to have folders on my PC (where I store all my photos and do all my editing) in the same way I can sync my phone's camera folder. I can do it via Drive, but seems it will use twice as much storage, as they're copies.

Also, I'd like them to 2-way sync. Particularly with my phone camera, I need to go through and clear all the dross out and leave the photos I want to keep. I don't want to have to do that twice. Not sure Photos is going to be for me.

I have an Office subscription and that gives me the 365 suite of apps plus 1TB of storage in OneDrive. Just enable photo backup in the app. It's a more clunky app than Google Photos and searching is not as intelligent, but as I was paying for a 365 sub and get the storage I may as well use it. Plus I use Windows on PCs so it integrates well there.

Google Photos still works as well on the phone, just I'm getting closer to the limit on the cloud, but I could delete old stuff in Google Drive.

Main thing I find useful with Google though is location searching on a map, so can see photos you took at particular places. Microsoft doesn't have that.