Top 7 Reasons to Love Google Photos

#7: It makes fun creations from your photos and videos. 

Sometimes it does it automatically without you even asking. Sometimes you want to make some yourself. This fireworks example is an animation. The movies even add music!

#6: It's so easy to share a picture, or lots of pictures. 

All you do is select the picture(s) tap the share button, and select the person(s) from your contacts. If you choose their email address, they will receive the photo in an email. If you choose their phone number, they will receive the text, if they use Google Photos, you can skip email or phone and send it directly to their Google Photos account. It will show up in their Google Photo's Assistant.

#5: You can edit your photos on the phone/tablet, or on the computer. 

Just one tap on "Auto" can make a world of difference. Want your picture to have more pizazz? Try the Pop button! You can straighten a crooked horizon by tapping the Crop/Rotate tool and drag a slider to change the angle of the photo. Any edits you make will synchronize to all your devices.

#4: You can make albums to show off your best photos. 

Just select the photos you want to include, tap the 3-dot menu and Add to Album. Once an album is made, you can edit it to re-organize the photos, add maps, and even add text blocks to fully tell your story.

#3: Auto Backup and Free Up Space

Cellphone photos will automatically backup to "the cloud" - your Google Account online. Once you verify they made the trip, you can remove them from the phone with one command - Free Up Space.

#2: Find the Photos you Want with Sort, Search and Automatic Albums

Google PHotos keeps your entire library of photos (over 50,000 for me) in order by date. A simple pinch on the screen and you see years and months grouped together. Looking for a particular picture? Try search. I can come up with that one photo of kayaking in La Jolla by searching for "Kayaking in La Jolla" !! There are also automatic groupings by Faces, Places, and Things. 

#1: Google Photos is a Forever Home for your Lifetime of Photos

The number one, best reason to use Google Photos is that it can collect your photos from many sources and store them in one place - your Google Account online - with unlimited storage, for free, forever! By uploading from my mobile devices, uploading from my computer and all external hard drives, I have a master collection of over 50,000 pictures. I can see all of them from any device I happen to have available. 

Just a sampling of my 56,000+ photos as seen with Google Photos on my phone.

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Chris Guld (aka Mrs. Geek) is President and Teacher-in-Chief t 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.

Want to be an Expert in Google Photos?

by Chris Guld
When Google Photos first came out, I knew I wanted to become expert in it. I specialize in helping people manage their digital photos. I have been using, and teaching, Picasa (Google’s free photo management software)  for over 10 years – and I loved it. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of other people were using Picasa and loving it because I taught them. But, the writing was on the wall that change was inevitable. Picasa was built for the world of digital cameras and computers – it only used the web occasionally, just for sharing your best photos. The world of photos is migrating to smartphones and web, no computer necessary.

Google doesn’t just see the future, they invent it! So when they announced Google Photos as a brand new product, re-engineered from scratch, to handle all our digital photo needs – I wanted in! I immediately started using it in May 2015. Then I jumped in on the user help forums. I wanted to become expert in this product and you can too. I started reading everything I could find, and then answering people’s questions in the forum. The more I answered, the more I learned!  If you answer a lot of questions, and do a good job, you get invited to join the Top Contributors program. You can also answer questions with the #GHelp hashtag in Twitter. See goo.gl/helponsocial 



This is a volunteer program. People become Top Contributors because they have a passion for the product, and a passion for helping people learn. Google then gives us perks. The primary perk is recognition of our expert status. The next is open lines of communication to Google and our other product experts. I am on a team that includes people from the Philippines, Germany, Ghana, UK, and of course Mountain View, California – Google Headquarters.

Top Contributors Meetup

Every year Google recognizes it’s Top Contributors for all products and gives us the biggest perk – a trip to Google Headquarters in Mountain View, CA for a meetup. Here are a few photos from the meetup I just attended.


The meetup started with happy hour in the hotel. The main event began the next day and I was thrilled to meet the community manager for the Google Photos Top Contributors, Ben. He's kind of our "handler," acting as liaison between us and the product development team. He communicates with us at least weekly, and sets up a monthly video call with all of us.

Google Photos wasn't the only product represented - there were Top Contributors for Google Hangouts, Google Voice, Google Blogger, Gmail, Calendar, Android, Nexus, Search, Maps, Youtube, and many more! We heard presentations from several "Googlers" - that's what you're called if you work for Google! And, I got to get definitive answers on some Blogger questions and Google Voice questions I had - yes, I am a geek!

They also facilitated several icebreaker activities, and of course meals. I think my favorite part was sitting with Googlers on the product development team for Google Photos - I had some questions of them, but they had even more questions for me! It was also wonderful to get to meet many of my team face-to-face. I not only have team members now, but also some new friends!

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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.

Three ways to Delete Photos with Google Photos

Losing precious photos is what we want to avoid! Google Photo’s primary purpose is to keep your photos backed up and safe, but if you don’t understand where they’re getting backed up and how delete works, you could still end up losing them! I have three important points for you:

1. Be sure to verify that your photos are, in fact, backed up. Please check your account, on a computer, at photos.google.com to verify that your phone’s photos have successfully made it to your account online. Even if you trust the "all backed up" message, I still advise that you view your photos online to verify that you know the username and password for the account that is being used!
2. Don’t use the trashcan icon unless you never want to see that photo again.
3. If your goal is to make room on your phone by deleting pictures, use Google Photos "Free Up Space" command. Settings, Free Up Space.

Delete from All Sync’ed Devices with Trashcan icon

When you use the trashcan icon in Google Photos, you are saying this picture is garbage. You don’t want it anywhere. This will delete the selected picture(s) from the current location – the phone/tablet in your hand or the web (photos.google.com) if you’re using a computer. The trashcan will also delete the selected picture(s) from any sync’ed devices. A sync’ed device is a smartphone or tablet that has the Google Photos app with Backup and Sync turned on. A computer is not a sync’ed device – if you have these same pictures stored on a computer’s hard drive, they will not be affected.

Delete from Device Only by using the menu

If you want to remove some pictures from your phone, but leave them untouched on the photos.google.com website don’t use the trashcan! Instead:

1. Select photos to remove
2. Tap 3-dot menu
3. Android: Delete Device Copy
4. iPhone: Delete Device Original

If you don’t see an option to delete from device only, you may have selected photos that weren’t taken with that device and therefore do not exist to be deleted! That is also the explanation for the image at right where 15 pictures are selected, but only 6 device originals are among them.
On Apple devices, there is one more step. Whenever you delete a photo on an iPhone or iPad, it’s not actually deleted, it’s just moved to the Recently Deleted Album. So, those photos are still taking up space on your device. If you want to completely erase them, you need to go to the Apple Photos app, Albums, Recently Deleted, and erase them from there.

Delete all Backed Up Photos from the Device with One Command: Free Up Space

Google Photos keeps track of the photos that have successfully been backed up (uploaded to your Google Account.) Therefore, it can delete all the photos from your device with one command.

1. Tap the 3-line menu
2. Free Up Space
3. It will report how many photos and videos are found and then you tap Remove

Androids with SD cards

If you are using an Android device with an SD card, odds are that Google Photos does not have permission to write to that SD card. (February 2017 update: the Android update to Nougat has fixed this for most people) That means, if you try to delete a photo using Google Photos, it can’t. You have to use the native gallery app to do that. Although this renders your SD card rather useless, I don’t see it as a huge problem. I set my camera to use the internal phone memory even though I have an SD card available. This memory will fill up fast, so I use Google Photos “Free Up Space” command often. Very few of my photos are actually stored on my phone, but Google Photos shows me all the photos in my account – all 50,000 of them – as if they were on the phone.

If you are a GeeksOnTour.com member, here are several tutorial videos on this subject:

• 420.Google Photos: Editing: All Play, No Work! (FREE)
• 424. Google Photos: Editing Pictures on iPad / iPhone
• 425. Google Photos: Editing pictures on Web
• 427. Google Photos: Deleting Pictures from Android
• 428. Google Photos: Deleting Pictures from iOS (iPhone/iPad)
• 429. Google Photos: Deleting Pictures using Web
• 430.Google Photos: Free up space on iPhone and iPad
• 431.Google Photos: Free Up Space on your Android

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Continue your Education with Geeks on Tour by subscribing to our Newsletters!

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 Can't Add Text to Photos ... or Can It?

Just last week, Google released an update to the photo editing app called Snapseed. Snapseed is companion app to Google Photos, and with this update, it now has the ability to add text. Here are a few examples:

I LOVE it! Up until now, if I wanted text on a picture that is in my Google Photos, I either needed to go thru Google Drive (see this member video 434.Google Photos and Watermarks) or download the pictures to my computer and use Picasa, then re-upload the picture.

Now, I can just use Google Photos - meaning I have access to any of my 50,000 pictures over my lifetime - then use the 3-dot menu to "Edit in Snapseed." As you can see in the examples above, there are a lot of options on the text tool. When I'm done, it takes me back to Google Photos. If I'm using an Android device, I need to be sure the Snapseed device folder is being uploaded - on an iPhone/iPad that is not necessary.

We demonstrated this in our "What Does This Button Do?" show last week. Here is a direct link to the part where we show Snapseed.

Watch this video portion of our What Does this Button Do Show:

1. Adding Text to a Photo with Google Photos & Snapseed

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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.

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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