Even though Google tried to keep it as simple as possible, Google Photos. It, however, turned out to be a bit complicated for some users out there, so here’s a complete guide on how to use Google Photos like a pro. Keep reading if you’re already using the service as there are some awesome features you might not even know about.
What you will see here ?
The First Boot
So you introduced the Photos application, feel free to fire it up. Most importantly activity is backup everything to Google’s cloud. Sure you can avoid this yet this application will be only pointless without that. You can likewise change the settings later however we would suggest backing it up.
After finishing of the underlying screen, you land directly to your camera photographs where you will acknowledge what good-looking like Google made this application.
Duplicate Files
Google Photos is adequately brilliant to perceive the duplicate files and skip transferring them. The duplicate files may have various names as well as dwell in various folders (or gadgets). Yet Google Photos can in any case recognize and skip as needs be. It doesn’t choose for you however offers a choice on the off chance that you need to skip transferring the duplicates. A helpful feature to be sure. Unfortunately, on the off chance that you as of now have duplicate photographs some way or another, there is no simple method to erase them. A complex workaround exists, however.
Free up Space
Google Photos has another feature where in you can delete the all around uploaded photographs and recordings from the neighborhood folder of your device.
Just to free up space. This is particularly helpful when you have a telephone without expandable storage. To do this, go to the Settings screen and search for the “Free Up Space” button.
Downgrade previously uploaded photos from “Original quality” to “High quality”
This has been a much-mentioned feature on Google Photos. On the off chance that you were somebody who decided to upload your photos in full goal without pressure and later felt the spot of lessening storage space on Google Photos, you would now be able to minimize the quality of those generally uploaded photos to “High Quality” which doesn’t represent a mark against your Google storage amount. Simply go to photos.google.com/settings from your PC and snap ‘Recover Storage’.
Pinch IN ,Pinch OUT
To get a better view of your photos. You can pinch in to make them bigger and pinch out to zoom out dividing them according to their year/month/days. You can do the same by tapping the three vertical dots in the top right corner.
Tap on any photo and discover the astounding editing tools Google offers. You can crop, rotate, apply filters, increase the lighting and all the basic stuff one expects from a photo editing application. You can even create animated GIFs and photo slideshows and send them to YouTube straight from the app. Press the info app to explore the details including Google maps location and the ability to add a description (will be used in the stories).
Google also allows deleting the local copy of that photo preserving the one on the cloud making your storage nightmare less scary. Get a public link by going into the sharing menu.
Create Collages, Stories, Albums, And Animations
On the main screen, you will track down an or more symbol on the top that uncovers some truly magnificent highlights. You can produce collages, stories of your outings, collections, and animations of burst photos. Each has their own attributes, settings which the application will manage you through. Tragically, in the event that you had recently made collections and coordinated the images as needs be, Google Photos couldn’t care less about them and stores them in one major pool.
The assistant will make movies/stories/animations
All through your utilization, the assistant will make movies/stories/animations of your photos/trip which you can review and save moving them to the assortments tab.
You may be confounded among movies and stories. Movies are only recordings of your photos with music and impacts yet stories are only a truly tremendous approach to grandstand your excursions. They show where were you with some photos in a brilliant plan. Besides, in the event that you have a ton of photos and recordings of their child or another kid, Google Photos will likewise consequently make a themed movie – “They Grow Up So Fast”
Find device folders like “WhatsApp images”, “Downloads” etc from the left by dragging the drawer. You can back those up too if you want, but that might get really messy.
Rediscover this Day
Just like the “On This Day” feature of Facebook (or if you use Timehop), Rediscover this day option on Google Photos will help you find pictures taken on the current day in past years. It often displays them as a neat collage for easy sharing to social media.
Select Photos in Bulk
This has to be my favorite feature if Google Photos. You know how painful it is to select images and videos in bulk on mobile devices, but thankfully, that’s not the case with Google Photos. You don’t have to tap on each and every image you want to select, rather tap and hold on one photo and then swipe your finger downwards.
You’ll see that all the photos around your finger will get selected automatically even if you didn’t put your finger on all the photos. Brilliant!
“Alright Google, show me my photographs.”
All that you just educated is accessible on the web (photos.google.com) . Which you can later access on your work area or essentially from anyplace. Yet, as this is upheld by Google, some cool things come pressed. You can do basic Google searches to uncover your photographs (you ought to be signed in clearly). The web interface is only an all-inclusive variant of the application, so there’s nothing to get hinted by.
Attempt searches like “selfies”, “trains”, “canines” or even complex ones like “canines on a train” or “felines from October 2014”. They may not be consistently precise, however can shock you a couple of times.
Desktop clients for Windows and Mac
Speaking of desktop, Google has also launched desktop clients for Windows and Mac that can automatically sync photos from your computer right to Google Photos making it really easy to search anything and access. The clients let you choose which folders are included in the sync and at what size (you can also backup RAM photos) they’re transferred to the cloud.
This is also available in Google drive from the Photos tab on the left which is neat. If you use the Google Drive desktop client, you can use the same option to sync the Google Photos folder to your hard drive if you wish.
The Search
Google offers a really powerful search functionality that lets you find images based on basically everything from dates to faces to dogs. You can also name individual faces to locate them quickly. It also recognizes things like trains, animals, and mostly anything people click photos of generally which is if you think about it is just stupendous.
Bouncing in the Settings Page
You can do a ton of changes to suit your utilization by hopping in the settings page that you can go into from the side drawer on the left.
In the first place, we should discuss the backup setting, there you can change the transfer size (pick superior grade to get limitless storage), change when to backup photos, pick which organizers to backup, backup just while charging and a couple more.
You can likewise let loose device storage by eliminating unique photos keeping just the cloud duplicates, eliminate the location from the photos, channel collaborator cards and so forth
Shared Albums makes Sharing Photos easier
In a recent update, Google introduced shared albums, that as the name suggests, shows the albums/photos that are shared to or by you. If you are sharing to messenger app like WhatsApp, Google Photos will download and send the actual images in addition to the link to the shared album. Handy again.
Since there is no control who can see the shared photos once they have the link, it makes sense to keep a tab on the Shared Albums regularly and delete the ones that are no longer required.
Additionally, in an update, Google introduced a better way for sharing photos with other Google Photos users. Previously, if you needed to send someone an image or video, you either had to use a third party app or create a link.
Now, there’s an in-app sharing function through which you can directly share files, the receiver will consequently, get a notification for the same.
Try not to stress, your deleted photos are protected
This application additionally accompanies a trash folder (accessible from the left cabinet) that keeps the photographs deleted by you. They’re forever eliminated following 60 days or you can do delete physically from that point. The lone issue here is that in the event that you need to delete an image for all time, ensure you delete from the neighborhood folder of the gadget too. As Google Photos isn’t sufficiently astute (yet) not to re-upload the deleted image.
Archiving
Google recently added a feature for archiving pictures as well. The option is available in the left side menu which you can access by swiping right. For moving files into the archive, simply select them, tap the three dots and “archive”.
Syncing Photos across devices using Drive
By default, Google Photos aren’t visible on Google Drive, but you can enable it by going to drive.google.com . And turning on the “Automatically put your Google Photos into a folder in My Drive” option. This ensures you can see all your photos on Google Drive and even sync them across all your devices just like any other Google Drive folder. Most people don’t need this, but handy for professionals. This also helps you to attach photos in the cloud from your Gmail account.
Cast your Google Photos to your TV
With the new Chromecast device, Google added the much-awaited feature to cast photos from your Google Photos app in Android to your TV using Chromecast.
So next time you want to show off your holiday pictures to your friends, do it in style by casting the app on the big screen. This feature is ‘coming soon’ to iOS and the Web as well.
Send videos to YouTube
Just like images, Google Photos can store all your videos as well (up to max resolution of 1080p). And now YouTube has added an option to directly import your videos and photos from Google Photos right from the YouTube Upload page. Of course, you can share them privately or publicly as you wish.
Remove Geolocation data
If you are concerned about your privacy, you can strip out the location data stored on your images before you share them with people.
Head into Photos settings on the web and enable Remove geo-location in items shared by the link to do exactly that.
Sharing the Entire Library with Someone
If you want, Google Photos also allows you to share the entire library with your partner in real-time. Hence, when enabled, all your future and existing pictures will be automatically synced with someone’s else account.
- To turn this feature on, swipe right from the left edge
- Select “share your library”.
- Tap “Get started” and follow the instructions.
Create a Custom Themed Movie on Google Photos
The app allows you to manually create custom themed movies in just a bunch of steps. There are a handful of themes you can look into such as . “They Grow up so Fast”, “Doggie Movie”, “Meow Movie”, “Selfie Movie”, and more.
Conclusion
Google Photos can handle images from multiple devices pretty well. Photos from all the devices you have chosen to backup get synced to your primary account and arranged chronologically. But you can’t filter/arrange them on the basis of the original device from where it was backed. That’s one handy feature we wish Google introduces soon.
So we guess that was all there is to know about Google Photos. It’s a fantastic app and you should give it a try if you haven’t yet. You won’t go back to any other after using this.
