How to Get Started with Google Photos

This is the icon for Google Photos. If it is installed on your 

phone, use it instead of the Photos or Gallery app that 
came with your phone.

Updated Aug 2020.

If you have a smartphone and you take pictures with it, you should be using Google Photos. 

Using Google Photos means your photos will all be safely uploaded to your Google account in the "cloud" and you can delete them from the phone to free up space. Using the Google Photos app, you will be able to view all of the photos from your phone and from the cloud.

For example, I have stored all the digital photos I've ever taken, approximately 100,000 of them, in my Google account. Using the Google Photos app on any of my devices, I can see any of those 100,000 quickly and easily, even if none of them are actually on that device.

Getting Started on a Phone or Tablet 

The process is the same whether your device is Apple or Android. All you do is install the Google Photos app. Go to your App store or Play store, search for the free Google Photos app and get it. After it is installed, open it. The first few screens will guide you thru the setup. Pay attention to the Google account it is using, usually a gmail address, because this is where your photos and videos will be stored. 

Make sure that Backup and Sync is turned ON, then there are just 3 settings that are important: 

1. Google Account: This is where your pictures will be stored, it is probably a gmail address, yourname@gmail.com It is very important that you know this address.
2. Upload Size = High Quality for the free unlimited storage
3. Cellular data backup = No. 

These are the default settings and the ones we recommend. The "High Quality" means that your photos will be slightly compressed and Google will give you unlimited storage for free. Setting cellular backup to No means that you will need to connect your device to a Wi-Fi signal in order to upload your pictures. If you turn the setting to yes, your photos will be uploaded any time you have a cell signal, but you may incur data charges.

That's it! Now connect to a WiFi signal and just wait while your photos upload. Tap the account bubble at the top right to see the upload progress and wait for the message "Backup Complete."

iPhone/iPad special issue: What about your iCloud settings? If you have iCloud Photos turned on, you should leave it on until all your photos are successfully uploaded to Google Photos, then you can turn it off to free up space. If you have plenty of space, you can use both iCloud and Google Photos - they perform essentially the same service.

Android special issue: On Android devices there are pictures in folders other than that used by the camera. Take a look at Library->Photos on device and see if there are any folders that you want to be included in the Backup/Upload process. Tap the folder then turn on Back up and sync so it turns blue - this means the folder will be included.

Using Google Photos on a Computer 

There is no "Google Photos" App or Program for the computer. You simply open a browser (preferably Chrome) and visit Photos.Google.com. If you are logged into the same account as is being used by your mobile device, you will see all the same pictures, and have the same menu items available.

Uploading Pictures from a Computer: The goal is to have your lifetime of photos stored in your Google account! You probably have lots of photos currently stored on your computer's hard drive and possibly other external hard drives. Let's get those!

Manual method: You can go to Photos.Google.com and use the Upload button to manually Upload pictures from your computer to your Google account.
Automatic method: If you have lots of pictures on your computer in lots of different folders, it is much easier to use the Backup and Sync feature. 

1. Go to Photos.Google.com and make sure you are logged in to the proper Google account
2. Click the 3-line menu and select the bottom option: App Downloads
3. Download and install Backup and Sync
4. Make sure it is using the same Google account
5. See that it is uploading whatever folders contain your photos. To include more folders, including any attached external hard drives, click the Choose Folder button.
   
   
6. Realize that this upload procedure will not recreate your folder structure in the cloud. It will grab all the photos out of their respective folders and copy them to your Google Photos Library. The library is a continuous stream of all photos in date order. (The folders on your computer stay the same.)
7. Wait. This can take a while! For my 30-40,000 pictures it took about a week! Make sure you are not using a metered data Internet connection for this ... it could cost you big bucks!

Once it is done, you can see ALL your photos from any device! You can search by date, person, place or thing! It is SOO much fun!

If you are a Geeks on Tour premium member, here is a complete set of Tutorial Videos for Getting Started with Google Photos. If you're not a member, you can Join Now.

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Chris Guld is President and Teacher-in-Chief at GeeksOnTour.com. She has been in computer training and support since 1983 and owned a Computer Training Center called Computer Savvy from 1983-1996. She was one of the first WordPerfect Certified trainers in 1986; President of the International Computer Training Association in 1993; Author of the Beginner’s Guide to Picasa and the PicasaGeeks.com website. She is now a Top Contributor for the Google Photos Forum, author of Mrs. Geeks Guide to Google Photos, and owner of the LearnGooglePhotos.com blog. She loves to teach! If you want to learn, you’ve come to the right place.

The Easy Way to Get Videos from your Phone to Youtube

July, 2019 - this feature is set to be retired on July 10. See article by PeggyK
If you use Google Photos on your phone, they’re already there! All you have to do is go to your Youtube channel and select the videos you want.

1. Youtube.com and log in with the same Google Account you use for Photos
2. Click the Upload button and you will then see the Import Videos card
3. Click Import
4. You should now be seeing all your videos that have been uploaded to your Google Photos account – usually that is the videos taken with your phone. Click any that you want to appear in your Youtube channel, then click the Select button in lower left
5. Youtube needs to “process” your videos for the best playback experience. On this screen, you can add a custom Video name, description, and tags – but you don’t have to. Just click the blue Publish button in the upper right, and you’re done.

That’s it! The video that you took on your phone is now accessible with Youtube. Go Viral!!

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Chris Guld is President and Teacher-in-Chief at GeeksOnTour.com. She has been in computer training and support since 1983 and owned a Computer Training Center called Computer Savvy from 1983-1996. She was one of the first WordPerfect Certified trainers in 1986; President of the International Computer Training Association in 1993; Author of the Beginner’s Guide to Picasa and the PicasaGeeks.com website. She is now a Top Contributor for the Google Photos Forum and owner of the LearnGooglePhotos.com blog. She loves to teach! If you want to learn, you’ve come to the right place.

Google Photos Animations of Fireworks Photos

We hope you enjoyed the July 4 holiday as much as we did. But, that would be hard to do! July 4 is also our wedding anniversary - we call it inTERdependance day!

We took a water taxi ride to watch the fireworks in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It was a beautiful evening and I snapped lots of photos with my iPhone. Here is a sample of the many photos I took:

Later, when I looked in my Google Photos app, I noticed the little red marker on the Assistant that indicates something new is waiting for me. I opened it up, and here was an auto-created animation that Google Photos put together from my fireworks photos. It is amazing that this is all done for me. It is even more amazing how good it is! Notice the buildings in the photo - they don't move at all throughout the animation. I stood in the same spot to take the photos, but they were all handheld with my phone - I'm sure that I moved somewhat between shots.

To create the animation yourself, you just 

1. select the photos you want in the animation
2. Click (or tap) the + button
3. Choose Animation

That's it!

Animations don't have to be action shots. You can also use them for slideshows. I used animation to create this quick slide show of an entire month of photos.

If you are a Geeks on Tour member, you can watch these tutorial videos. If you're not a member, Join Now!

• 439.Google Photos Creating Animations
• 435.Google Photos Selecting on Computer
• 438. Google Photos – animation to replace slideshows
• 436.Google Photos – Send Pictures to a Friend
• 435.Google Photos Selecting on Computer
• 434.Google Photos and Watermarks
• 432.Google Photos – Manual Upload from Windows
• 429. Google Photos – Deleting Pictures using Web
• 428. Google Photos – Deleting Pictures from iOS (iPhone/iPad)
• 427. Google Photos – Deleting Pictures from Android

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Ask Google Photos to Find a Photo with 2 Named People

by Chris Guld, GeeksOnTour.com
On our What Does This Button Do? show this past week (Episode 85) we demonstrated some search tricks with Google Photos. Slide the YouTube playhead to the 17 minute, 13 second mark to see the demos.

Step One: Automatic Face Groups

If you use Google Photos, you probably know that it automatically groups like faces together, but did you know that you can ask for pictures that have 2 particular people in the photo? I have 50,000 photos in my Google Photos library. With one search, I can instantly see just the photos with two named people in the photo.
Obviously there are lots of pictures of people in my 50,000 collection. With one click on Albums, then another on People, I see automatic Face Groups. Click on one face and I see all the pictures with just that face.

Step Two: Name the Face Groups

When you click on the face of any group, it opens up to display all the photos that include that face. You will also see a little note asking “Who's this? Add a private label to search by name” Just type a name in the space provided and click Done.

Step Three: Search for Two Names

Once the faces are named, you can now use Search. In the example above, clicking on Jim displays hundreds of photos with Jim’s face, clicking on Devon does the same with Devon’s face. But using Search for Jim and Devon, and the results are just dozens of photos with both Jim and Devon in the shot.

Have Fun Searching!

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Chris Guld is President and Teacher-in-Chief at GeeksOnTour.com. She has been in computer training and support since 1983 and owned a Computer Training Center called Computer Savvy from 1983-1996. She was one of the first WordPerfect Certified trainers in 1986; President of the International Computer Training Association in 1993; Author of the Beginner’s Guide to Picasa and the PicasaGeeks.com website. She is now a Top Contributor for the Google Photos Forum and owner of the LearnGooglePhotos.com blog. She loves to teach! If you want to learn, you’ve come to the right place.

Google Photos: Getting Started on the Right Path

We help people started with Google Photos nearly every day! We decided to set it up as a class using online Webinar tools. This is for a very small group - limit 5 people. We will meet together for 2 sessions - 1 hour each, then each person will get one followup private session.

• Session 1: 6/23/26 3pm Eastern time
• Session 2: 6/30/16 3pm Eastern time
• Follow Up session: determined privately with each participant
• Limit: 5 participants
• Price: $50 non-members, $25 GeeksOnTour members: get your discount coupon code here

• Sign up using the Add To Cart link for the Photos Workshop Webinar on our Store page.

This will be an online webinar where all 5 participants will be live on the call and Chris and Jim from Geeks on Tour will be leading the group.

How Do I Send My Photos to a Friend?

by Chris Guld, GeeksOnTour.com
If you and your friend both use Google Photos, it is so easy to send them photos. You can send just one, or you can send hundreds of photos with one link, no need to break it up into small pieces, no need to attach to emails. There is also no need to use time and bandwidth to download and upload, because this process gets the pictures from your account in the cloud and transfers them directly to your friend's account in the cloud.

To send a group of photos to a friend, follow these steps:

1. You can use a computer and Photos.Google.com, or a mobile device and the Google Photos App
2. Select the photos you want to send. You can select large groups by first putting them in an album, then sharing the album. You can also select a large group of photos on a computer by selecting the first one, scrolling down to the last and hold the shift key as you click on it. You can then click to deselect any pictures that don't belong. On a mobile device, long-press on the first one and drag thru the rest.
3. Click the share button and choose Get Link. On mobile, Share will be under the 3-dot menu. A link has now been copied.
4. You can now paste that link into an email that you send to your friend. You can also paste it into a text message, or a facebook post, or even a blog page.
5. When your friend receives the link and clicks it, they will see all the pictures you shared. They don't need a Google Photos Account to see them, but if they do use Google Photos and are logged into their account, they will see a cloud button with a down arrow, or the word Save. When they click that, all the pictures they see will be added to their own Google Photos library.

That's it! You select and send. Your friend opens and saves.
If you are a GeeksOnTour.com premium member, you should watch the following videos from the Google Photos learning group:

1. 435.Google Photos Selecting on Computer
2. 436.Google Photos – Send Pictures to a Friend
3. 621.Google Photos-Share Album Link

Google Photos–Is it Really Unlimited and Free?

Google Photos will store your entire 
library, many thousands of photos, for free!

YES!! If you choose the photo size called High Quality and not Original, Google Photos will store your entire photo library of many thousands of photos, for free. Learn more from the Google Photos Help page.

What is High Quality?

At the High Quality size, Google maintains your photos’ pixels up to 16 MegaPixels. That’s 4,000 X 4,000. That’s more than most digital cameras offer today. It’s big. So it sounds like it only reduces your photo if it’s more than 16 megapixels right? Well, not exactly. It does take your photo and compresses the file size while maintaining the same number of pixels. Your 12 megapixel photo will still be 12 megapixels, but where the .jpg file for the original photo may have been 3 MB (megabytes), the file that is uploaded is compressed to about half that.
If you take pictures for personal use, just select High Quality and don’t even think about it. It is truly high quality. That’s is big enough to completely fill your computer screen and be very sharp. I have printed 8X10 glossies of a picture using the original .jpg file and using the compressed ‘High Quality” file and I could not tell the difference.
If you are a professional photographer who may want your picture to grace the cover of a magazine, that’s another story. I’m sure you want your original. So keep the original somewhere, but you may still want to use Google Photos at the High Quality setting. The smaller files give you a faster experience when viewing, searching, uploading, downloading,and sharing than the full size.

If I have Unlimited storage, why does it say I have 13 Gigabytes remaining?

Google gives everyone 15 Gigabytes of storage for free. This storage is shared by all your Google services; Gmail, Google Drive, Contacts, Photos, etc. So, Gmail and Drive may be taking up 2 Gigabytes, for example, bringing your quota down to 13. Photos uploaded using Google Photos at High Quality do not count. So, if you uploaded even 20 Gigabytes of photos, you would still have 13 GB of your quota left.
If you upload photos using Google Drive, they will count against your quota. It’s only when you upload using the Google Photos Backup and Sync, with setting at High Quality, that they don’t count.

What about Pictures I already uploaded at Original Size?

Google now gives you a way to retroactively set past uploads to the High Quality and thus recover the storage space used up on your quota. Using a computer, go to Photos.Google.com, click on the 3 line menu and then Settings. You’ll see an option to Recover Storage. Click that and any already uploaded pictures will be compressed.

Does Uploading Pictures with Picasa use the High Quality Setting?

No. Picasa still uses an old standard size called “Best for Sharing.” This is defined as 2048 pixels on the longest side. To put it in the same terms, let’s say a picture is 2048X2048 – that would be just over 4 MegaPixels – or 1/4 the size of the new “High Quality.”
Here’s what you do: Use Picasa to upload photos at the Original Size option. This will count against your storage quota from Google, but you can later use the option to Recover Storage and retroactively compress those files.