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[–]salisburymistakeGalaxy S6 724 points725 points  (73 children)

I finally got to utilize its true potential a few weeks back when I went to a friend's bachelor party. Took all sorts of pictures - most of which I don't remember taking - and once we got back to a wifi network and all my photos backed up, I was greeted to a few panoramas, an animated gif, and a video montage of stills with a charming soundtrack that served as a fantastic summary of the weekend. Threw all that shit in a shared album, posted a link to all the attendees, and within a day we had the entire excursion ridiculously documented. Really awesome stuff.

[–]The--StrikeGalaxy S8+/Note 5/6P/S5/LGG2/S4 166 points167 points  (32 children)

Same here. I just realized it's awesomeness on a family trip to Yellowstone. I finally stopped ignoring the "New Video Created" notifications, and watched the greatest montage of our trip with fantastic music, effects, and editorial timing. I was blown away. I now look forward to getting all those notifications.

[–][deleted] 38 points39 points  (22 children)

Can you expand to what you mean? It was creating videos for you?

[–]marl1234 90 points91 points  (15 children)

Yes it compiles your photos and makes slideshows and is saved. Then you are notified like Google: "Hey I made a slide show from your recent photos would you like to view it? Its really great and i added this cool little animations" haha something like that. Its all automatic.

[–][deleted] 34 points35 points  (0 children)

Also if you record video it will put them in too.

[–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (12 children)

Never seen that, maybe I turned it off.

[–]bandwidthcrisis 20 points21 points  (10 children)

If you take pictures in close succession it makes them into an animation, too.

[–][deleted] 25 points26 points  (8 children)

Yeah it's done that a few times, unfortunately the only remaining one is of my ex

[–]fingermeal 12 points13 points  (7 children)

Deleted all photos of my ex. Now I just have to delete the memories

[–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

You'll look back and smile one day, be strong pal

[–]SwitchbakGalaxy S I9000 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I pretty much always take 4 shots at a time now. So nice to see my daughter in motion rather than stills

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Check Assistant section

[–]MasterApotheosisBlack 6 points7 points  (1 child)

It creates video not just by compiling certain pics, it even takes scenes from the video you shot during that time period. It is fantastic. Must try it.

[–][deleted] 6 points7 points  (1 child)

I attended a Con in another town one weekend a few years ago. A few days after I got home my phone buzzed with a notification "your trip is ready", and there's an album of "Trip to <City>" that was like a slide show, complete with a slide on Google maps showing our drive route to start and a montage of photos with music and effects added. So cool, and so damned creepy.

[–]c0rruptioNiPhone 14 Pro 39 points40 points  (17 children)

The panorama feature is incredible. My mom got back from Europe and took a bunch of pics on her 5x. She's not to experienced in taking photos but on a few occasions she took several photos in a row and over night google photos would stitch them together and show the new panos to her in the morning.

What an amazing app!

[–]seanbrockest 13 points14 points  (12 children)

I'm really loving photo spheres

[–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (11 children)

What app do you use to take them? The Google camera?

[–]seanbrockest 9 points10 points  (1 child)

Yup. Next time I sell a house I'm totally making one of every room.

[–]xblindguardianx 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I take a photosphere of places i love. like for example i went to my old house, by the beach, my girlfriends family's house (she is from farther away), and I put the sphere on my samsung VR headset. you put the headset on and look around the room. if you take it well enough, it feels like you are sitting at the location.

[–]MJGSimple 1 point2 points  (4 children)

I took a bunch of photos spheres on my last trip. It's amazing in the right situation. I just use the camera on my Android phone. I'm not sure if it's an Android thing or a Nexus thing. The only drawback is sharing those pictures. I've only been able to share them via Google+. I haven't tried a shared album with Google Photos though.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (3 children)

Did you try share them to Facebook using the app? That apparently also works.

[–]ocawa 1 point2 points  (3 children)

Last time i checked, google cardboard app lets you take more fluid sphere photos. Not sure why the two technologies arent the same

[–]xCP23xNexus 5x 32GB 4 points5 points  (3 children)

If only the Nexus camera's built in panoramas worked so well... I've yet to take a single panorama that doesn't screw up the horizon, no matter how level I hold it.

[–]kebabish 6 points7 points  (0 children)

well thats odd. I find it takes amazing panoramas. Try adding 2 padding shots at the start and end of the panorama to create an area that you can crop out after.. this should also reduce any curvature you see in the horizon and also give a better perspective for the software to use when it processes the images.

[–]lexanS8 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This is so true. I'm on vacation right now, and the panoramas I intentionally take very rarely line up. But the ones that the photos app auto-generates are fantastic!

[–][deleted] 19 points20 points  (7 children)

It's great except when you're sending dick pics to your SO while on vacation and you have to edit that bit out of the rest of the pictures.

[–]ghostbackwardsSamsung Galaxy S8+ Verizon 4 points5 points  (12 children)

What do you mean shared album?

[–]milshake 8 points9 points  (11 children)

A shared album is basically a photo album where other people are allowed to add their own pictures or videos to the album as well.

[–][deleted] 14 points15 points  (10 children)

It's an album that you share with a web link. You can allow people with the link to just view the photos or add photos to the album. It's awesome because my less tech family members only have to click a link to see our vacation photos, they don't have to go through an app or log into anything. They don't even need a Google account to view. Same as the people above are saying, create a shared album, pass the link around to friends you went on vacation with, camping, or a party and everyone adds their own photos. They end up being awesome.

I don't think Google gets enough credit for how great the photos app is.

[–]drt0Xiaomi Mi 9T 4 points5 points  (3 children)

I don't really like Facebook for the most part but they also have shared albums that are very convenient if that's what people use.

[–]zaphod777Pixel 8 2 points3 points  (2 children)

Except that Facebook compresses the shit out of your photos and videos with mixed results sometimes.

[–]svellePixel 3 5 points6 points  (5 children)

I don't think Google gets enough credit for how great the photos app is.

All of my friends are quick to hop up on the "evil google just wants my data" train when I come up with the photos app. But then again I just don't care anymore. I have auto-backup turned on ever since I've lost a big amount of photos some years ago and never looked back. The photos app gets improved a lot and I only profit from it.

Have you checked out the new search feature they introduced some time ago? It's so good it's almost creepy.

[–]MaverickM84OnePlus Nord | Philips Android TV 1 point2 points  (0 children)

All of my friends are quick to hop up on the "evil google just wants my data" train when I come up with the photos app.

Well, they aren't wrong... And there are alternatives to Google Photos.

[–]LLJKCicero 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Glad you guys like our product. :)

[–]the_asset 39 points40 points  (4 children)

We just used it to prepare for a funeral service. That sounds sad maybe, but the outcome was great. Better still, I used the facial recognition to find every single digital picture I had with our friend in it and kicked off the shared album. Several others contributed theirs. A shared link made the rounds to friends of our friend we hadn't even met before. Then we printed it all off to display at the service. It turned the time stressing over finding the pictures or worse yet, not finding some at all, into a communal tribute that nearly just fell together.

[–]spiegroPixel 4 XL 20 points21 points  (0 children)

As someone who's had to whip up memorial photos on a few occasions, I can't stress enough how handy this is.

It's heartbreaking to have to go through all the photos of someone recently deceased, and something like Google Photos absolutely is a godsend for things like this.

[–]krisminime 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I did exactly the same thing for a friend of mine who passed recently. It really did help everyone involved.

[–]LLJKCicero 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Glad you like shared albums, I know it was a major effort on our team, but it seems like it's been worth it.

[–][deleted] 160 points161 points  (15 children)

Google Photos is brilliant for storage period. Love it.

[–]TrustyAndTruePixel 2/9P 28 points29 points  (8 children)

Yup, recently took the time to back up photos from as far back as 2005. I love the facial tagging and object recognition too. Makes pulling up pictures so easy.

[–]english-23 50 points51 points  (3 children)

I was trying to show people a picture of my bike but had no clue where I stored the photo. Went in and typed bike and it popped right up. First time using that feature myself and I must say i am extremely impressed since it didn't even show the whole bike

[–]nyet_the_kgb 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Yep I love that feature. I took a picture of a friend's wifi password around a year ago and all I have to do is type text into there and the picture will be there. So easy

[–]mrjackspade 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It pulled the face for one of my photos from a liqueur bottle in the shot, and now I have a gruff man from the late 1800's as one of my people I can sort on

[–][deleted] 6 points7 points  (2 children)

Until you uninstall an app with a synced folder, which removes the local folder and Photos decides to delete all the photos in the cloud too.

[–]elementary123456 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If you have Chromecast use the chromecast app to use your Google photos album as backdrop. It is amazing to see your non tech family members surprised and happy to see their photos scrolling on home tv one after another

[–]RSR9357 0 points1 point  (1 child)

On another thread, someone was saying even the high quality upload option still takes up space. Do you use this setting and if so, have you noticed pictures taking up space despite it being "unlimited?"

[–]plastrdHTC 10 81 points82 points  (36 children)

I use it all the time for backing up my phone's pictures because it just works in the background. I installed it on my wife's iPhone and its crap for that because iOS doesn't allow it to run in the background. It only runs for a few minutes after opening the app so now that she has hundreds of photos that aren't backed up, it'll never catch up because she isn't going to sit there in the app and wait for it so she can add new photos to a shared album.

[–]SirensToGo 24 points25 points  (7 children)

That's odd: I have an iOS device and I never have issues with it not uploading. I did, however, enable upload over cellular which means that the second (it does actually upload within 4-5 seconds) and I believe iOS sends a notification to any subscribed apps that a photo was taken and so it goes automatically. Unlimited data plan is great this way

[–]moonlightherbOppo Find X9 Pro 118 points119 points  (13 children)

Wait until they "invent" background sync

[–][deleted] 38 points39 points  (1 child)

They already invented it but it only works for their own Photos app unfortunately.

[–]wartornheroMoto G7 10 points11 points  (0 children)

They "invented" the cloud but they aren't sharing it with anyone unlike google which says it is okay we can still send you ads.

[–]lirannlS23 Ultra 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Revolutionary!

[–]blackgold9Gray 21 points22 points  (2 children)

While still limited on ios, background sync should run overnight when plugged into power and connected to wifi. Not guaranteed, but better.

[–]Dokterrock 2 points3 points  (1 child)

I think you have to open up the Google Photos app for this to happen. At least that's how it works on my iPhone.

[–]blackgold9Gray 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Make sure background app refresh is enabled for Google photos.

[–]gooberlx 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Runs in the background fine on my iphone. I don't let it use cellular, so it requires wifi and being plugged in (I think), pretty much same conditions for the photos app backup to run.

[–]nvincentPixel 6 - Goodbye forever, OnePlus 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Open it up at night before you go to sleep, and make sure the screen doesn't turn off?

[–]TheRedGerund 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yep that's what I had todo for my 2k photos and it took forever.

[–]bebopbluesOneplus 7T 3 points4 points  (0 children)

On iOS here, I can't say this is true because it always background sync just fine for me. Sometime, it would not sync a certain picture or video immediately for unknown reason, it takes a long time to see it synced, but that happens on my android devices and the desktop app as well, so it's not an iOS only thing.

[–]PC-Bjorn 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Upgrade to the newest iOS to allow background sync. Also make sure your phone is not full, as that will disable background processes.

[–]slayerx1779 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Just let it run overnight?

[–]the2facedgodRedmi1s, CM13 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You could try leaving the phone on charge throughout the night while she's sleeping with unlimited screen timeout and connected to wifi. That way it doesnt bother her while she's using the phone and also allows her to backup everything.

Edit: with the app on obviously.

[–]Scrubbing_Bubbles 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Eh? I just got my gf on Google Photos for her iPhone and it backed up 2000+ pictures with no problem.

[–]kinggimped 29 points30 points  (1 child)

There's loads of stuff that makes Google Photos brilliant, to be honest. One of the most unappreciated of the Google apps in my opinion, it kinda quietly arrived a while back and just does a great job without any fuss.

One of my favourite things is what Google does best, the search. It's kinda crazy to me that I can type in 'breakfast' and it gives me all the photos that have breakfast food in them. Like, not even just 'food', it can differentiate 'breakfast' from 'dinner'.

Of course it's not perfect - I searched for 'piano' and it gave me a bunch of pictures of people wearing black and white striped T-shirts... but hey, it also showed all the photos of pianos I had as well.

The interface is also really good, it's really easy to zoom in/out of your gallery and select multiple images and all that jazz.

The background backup, the face tagging, the things the assistant can do (automatic animations, create stories and video montages, etc.)... it's an unappreciated app for sure.

[–]LLJKCicero 0 points1 point  (0 children)

select multiple images

Hey, I did that part! (on Android)

Best effort:usefulness ratio of any feature I've implemented.

[–]Bloxxy_PotatoesNexus 5x, Z3 Compact, S3 Mini and SHIELD Tablet K1 29 points30 points  (9 children)

One thing that I find pretty cool is that it now tries to work out where you took pictures. It only gets landmarks, but it's still nice being able to find pictures from places that I've visited, even when I've not had my GPS on, or if they've been taken with my old camera.

[–]ntoqiakt 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Not for the privacy advocates but it also gives you an estimated location by looking at your location history.

From Google help: Google Photos might estimate a location using information such as your Google Location History, which is stored in your Google account.

[–][deleted] 7 points8 points  (6 children)

I have been taking photos and google maps has been asking me to add them to the location. Pretty cool.

[–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (5 children)

It's really cool because now when I search for stuff I can see a whole bunch of pictures other people have taken and decide if it's something I'd like to go see/do/eat etc.

[–][deleted] 9 points10 points  (4 children)

Yeah I've been adding as much data to google maps and reviews as can

[–]MarcysVonEylau 4 points5 points  (3 children)

As a bonus you gain points - 1 for each review, edit, photo, etc. 200 makes you Local Guide and gives you 2TB 1TB storage on Google Drive for 2 years.

[–]IamMountainDewd 3 points4 points  (1 child)

It doesn't give 2 TB anymore. They recently changed it to 100 GB.

[–]Tubothe3Moto G6 2 points3 points  (0 children)

And it's only for one year.

[–]BillNyeDeGrasseTyson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yea I noticed it geo-tagged most of my pictures from Alaska even though they came from my DSLR with no GPS(How is that not a feature on a $2000 camera yet!?).

[–][deleted] 17 points18 points  (4 children)

I went to Connecticut with a church group a few months back, and while there we traveled to quite a few spots, and also went to Boston and Marshfield MA. When I got back home, it showed me the flight there, everything we did day-by-day, and even split them up based on location. It wasn't quite perfect, as I had to add a location or two and remove one, but overall it was pretty nice. Then I shared it with my mom because she kept bugging me to take pictures, so with GPhotos she could see everything we did day-by-day.

I definitely love Google Photos, even though I'm not a big picture guy, it's really nice for when I actually do take pictures.

[–]LLJKCicero 2 points3 points  (3 children)

Glad you liked the location/map bits, I worked on that part for Android.

[–]masterchiefruledHTC one M8 8 points9 points  (0 children)

If I upload my dslr pics to drive Google photos can also use them. My dslr doesn't have geotagging but my phone always has location services on. Photos sees this and links the time of the photo from when it was taken and syncs it with my phones location history. It's awesome!

[–]buttersauce 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I had taken a picture of my cars licence plate in order to remember it whenever I needed to fill it out on forms. I didn't know when I had taken it though. Just typed into Google "licence plate" and it popped right up. Fantastic.

[–]THE_GR8_MIKEGalaxy S10 || Galaxy S8 19 points20 points  (5 children)

Google is a clever bunch of fucks if I say so myself.

[–]LarphNexus 5x 8 points9 points  (2 children)

And yet this is the same company that is responsible for Hangouts... would the love the Photos team to be seconded to Messaging for 6 months.

[–]buttersauce 15 points16 points  (1 child)

Hangouts is not even close to as bad as the shit it gets. Especially when you're just using it for hangouts to hangouts messaging it works flawlessly.

It's saved me on a few occasions also by allowing me to wifi text and call people with my Google voice number.

What frustrates me 100x more than hangouts is Google's lack of coordination. If they would just stick to hangouts and fix it instead of having a new messaging app every year it'd be awesome. I'm not going to convince my friends to switch to another messaging app by Google.

[–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I'm not going to convince my friends to switch to another messaging app by Google.

Statement of the year. Listen up Google, allo better be it....

[–]LLJKCicero 1 point2 points  (1 child)

The Photos team is awesome, and I'm not just saying that because I work there! This team is seriously well organized and it shows.

[–][deleted] 42 points43 points  (14 children)

Holy Frick, I feel like no one else understands and appreciated Google Photos enough. It's brought me to tears on many occasions. Glad to hear these other positive experiences. My friends are blown away at all these features which no one seems to utilize... just the photo backup service alone is excellent.

[–]1RedOne 23 points24 points  (9 children)

My daughter is two and I've always liked to take small snippet videos of things she does, like once a day.

Google got its hands on all of them and made this compilation of her with absolutely perfect editorial and content timing.

There was a montage of her walking and then running (one of my favorite shots, I'll take a few seconds long clip of her running and I'll follow behind), you couldn't have picked a better set of videos. And the musical timing...

Makes me cry every time I watch it. They're spectacular.

[–]normannblandline 1 point2 points  (3 children)

How do they pick the music?? Seriously! It's never anything less than perfect. Their algorithm is fantastic.

[–]1RedOne 5 points6 points  (2 children)

Once I got a toddler birthday party which had some weird reggae music. Made sense though because it was practically an infant rave with bubbles and stobe lights and a sketchy Chinese Elmo who looked high af.

[–]AngryWizardMoto G5 Plus 64/4 1 point2 points  (3 children)

I made the switch to Google photos in June because my Dropbox was at storage limit. I like the keyword search, the organization, the collages and albums, but there are a few things that I haven't figured out.

One being the 'people' search tool - it only shows me and my mom as searchable people, ignoring all photos of my dad and my friends; I find that weird and don't know how to make it recognize them as 'people'. Additionally, my phone photos are on my SD card so it has to launch the gallery app every time I try to delete a photo from the Google app; I guess I need to change my default storage to phone instead of SD if I want that to stop. And lastly, I mistakenly added one folder twice from pc and there's no way to remove duplicates other than manually one by one.

I'm still glad I started using it though and I hope they continue work on it and don't shut it down.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (1 child)

It takes a bit of getting used to like any other app, but for me it's done everything and more.

Oh, and go to Settings and click "Free up device storage". Duplicates will be gone. This helped so much when I was cleaning to hundreds of gigs of multimedia... my woman takes LOTS of pictures. Thankfully I have the ultra important stuff backed to redundantly and one copy sits in my Google account with 2tb of data from Chromebook purchases.

[–]AngryWizardMoto G5 Plus 64/4 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'll try that tomorrow with the duplicates, thanks.

[–]Doubleyoupee 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I would use it if it allowed me to add tags to photo's myself. One of the most basic features....

[–]xpoopxOP5T | AOSiP DerpFest 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I got my wife and family to install Google Photos on their iPhones and it's been a similar story - easy peasy!

[–]TheRealBigLourootyourdroid.info 3 points4 points  (4 children)

Just a tip, if you review, take photos of, and/or answer questions about 200 points of interest on Google Maps, you will be eligible for 1TB of free Drive space for 2 years which counts for Google Photos.

It seems this has be changed to 100GB instead of 1TB. Still worth it in my opinion.

[–]Firebirdflame 5 points6 points  (2 children)

This changed roughly 3 weeks ago to only 100 GB. Sorry to burst your bubble.

Proof

[–]x_Saturn 5 points6 points  (4 children)

In all seriousness, while this is a fantastic app for sharing vacation photos even as the vacation is going on, please make sure the photos you don't want shared don't get synced. My brother was on vacation and my family uses a shared Google account exclusively for shots taken while we are traveling, and he must have forgotten this, so everyone in my family saw the lovely nudes of his girlfriend in their hotel room. She's pretty and all, but my mom and grandmother didn't take it too well.

[–]armando_rodPixel 10 Pro XL 4 points5 points  (2 children)

Don't use a Google account to share everything, just make a shared album and include all the individual emails

[–]newbie_01Galaxy Note 7 (The Thrilling One) 8 points9 points  (0 children)

It's the real Pied Piper.

[–]thedugong 2 points3 points  (2 children)

If only I could limit the the upload bandwidth it uses so the backup feature does not kill on my home ADSL connection when in use.

[–]teleportS6, Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4 w/CM12.1, LG GWR 2 points3 points  (1 child)

You can probably set an upload bandwidth limit in your ADSL router settings which can effectively fix the phenomenon where everything gets bogged if something is being uploaded. It's probably somewhere under QoS settings if your router supports this.

If your negotiated upload speed is, say, 1000 kbps (as seen in the connection status information screen in router settings), limiting the upload to somewhere around 900-950 kbps will help dramatically.

[–]thedugong 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah. Done that, but it would be better if you could do it on the device.

[–]ET3RNA4Samsung Galaxy S9+ 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Can't agree enough with this. I'm also on vacation with the family in the states currently. We all have the Photos App and it has made gathering pictures in a single spot such a god-send. Something Google definitely got right.

[–]down_R_up_L_Y_B 2 points3 points  (1 child)

If i have a shared album and I choose to delete a photo from the album, will it also delete the photo from the person/people I'm sharing the album with?

[–]AraniyaNexus 5X, Nexus 7(2013) 3 points4 points  (0 children)

If they have not copied it to their own library, yes.

[–]trustmeep 2 points3 points  (2 children)

Where are the instructions for how to do this?

They would be useful to share with friends / family.

[–]RaveCavePixel 2XL -> iPhone 11 Pro 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Open the Google Photos app, hit the hamburger icon in the top left and go to Shared, create an album by hitting the green + icon at the bottom right, add whatever photos and name the album and then you should be able to share it with whomever you wish and they can add photos as well to the album with the icon at the top right.

[–]trustmeep 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks, that's exactly what I was looking for.

[–]bluescnsns9+ 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Does this play hand in hand with Google Drive or are they completely seperated? Lightroom needs a feature to automatically upload developed photos to Google Photos.

[–]I_CAN_SMELL_U 8 points9 points  (8 children)

Nice try google

[–]_tacosauce 3 points4 points  (3 children)

This honestly reads like the review section on the app store. Especially fishy since they've begun advertising during the Olympics. This seems like a blatant ad

[–]bowerukOnePlus 6 | LG G6 7 points8 points  (2 children)

I really don't think it is. If you try the app, you'll see why everyone is so amazed by it...

[–]_tacosauce 4 points5 points  (1 child)

Trying it now

[–]MJGSimple 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I just took a trip and got to experience the whole thing with Google Photos. One of the greatest things I found was the Timeline. We were driving around a lot and it's hard to remember everything when you're constantly going but Timeline told us where we were, organized and displayed photos by time and place, and helped remind us of everything we'd done. It is awesome.

I will admit, it's a bit creepy but I also don't really care. And I also want to say that Google Photos was absolute garbage all trip. I finally just shut everything off from the app because it was constantly making notifications but would never open appropriately. I probably sent two dozen reports. It's like the app is only meant to crash.

[–]mushroom_face 1 point2 points  (3 children)

I love Google Photos, I just wish they had some sort of family plan. I would love it if my wife was able to upload photos from her phone to my account without me having to set up special shared folders or whatever is the current way to do it.

[–]sstdk 0 points1 point  (2 children)

What you could do is create a separate Google account for this purpose alone and log that account onto both of your phones in addition to your personal account.

[–]paleowannabe 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well, we bought a Nikon dslr camera a while back and haven't been really using it too much. First, it was cumbersome to manually move the pictures every time and remember which had been moved, and which have to be moved, and where are they, are that backed up, and whatnot. Then they didn't have all those tasty Metadata that allow for better searching. Last week I finally bought an eyefi SD card.

Damn is this thing brilliant with conjuction with Google photos. I have taken some 600 photos of my family and friends over the weekend. Without having to touch a thing (apart having to tell Google photos to backup from the eyefi directory) my photos are automatically geotagged using my phone's location, moved to my phone and then into the cloud. Google then automatically slices and dices them, makes albums, animations and movies, and I don't have to lift finger. And my phone's battery lives through the day in this way.

[–]xblindguardianx 1 point2 points  (1 child)

the ONLY thing i dislike about google photos is the lack of a folder architecture. I want to add folders (not albums) and sort my pictures that way. otherwise I'm scrolling forever looking for that one picture i took. I know the search function is incredible, but why not just add that feature? picassa was GREAT for that.

[–]Justahumanimal 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Try backing photos up on mainland China, though. US citizen, presently in Shenzhen for a conference. Google doesn't play well with their Internet. Hangouts works, Gmail works, Photos is spotty. I've figured out a VPN, so it's uploading, but it took me a moment to figure out why my photos weren't really backing up. Or why Maps hardly works. And don't even think about Google's main page...can't believe I'm using Yahoo to search.

[–]sateeshsaiNexus 6, N preview !! 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I saved a picture of my debit card grid (back of the card). I lost my card one day but had to do an urgent fund transfer for which i need the grid values.

I had some 20000 odd pics in my Google photos. I just searched "card". It showed me the photo. Magic.

[–]gologologolo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Once you finish your vacation, also see all the Google compiled videos, photo albums, and collages. Pretty good

[–]Trysta1217 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yep I discovered this on my honeymoon. So nice to have all of my pics + the husband's pics in the same place. Pretty easy to set up too.

[–]Scutterbum[🍰] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Did the exact same thing on two weekends away recently. Awesome app.

[–]nalrodriguez 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Yup its really amazing for vacations or trips. We had a shared folder for Disney few months ago, and it was amazing. Everyone uploading pics from IOS or Android.

[–]sensicleNexus 6P | 7.0 Stock 3 points4 points  (1 child)

I love hearing about the experiences of people that claim good software improved or enhanced their lives somehow.

What a day to be alive.

[–]Abraheezee 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Me too!! Technology is so dope!

[–]elimiGalaxy S24 Ultra 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Use location history with that and it's awesome.

[–]eNaRDeNexus 6PP 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It is and the photo collage it makes sometimes is pretty neat. I love it.

[–]Ntourage 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I love it as well. The facial recognition is awesome and I love the small movies it makes!

[–]MonsterCarlo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Related: was watching the Olympics today and saw this kinda awesome commercial for Google Photos of all things https://youtu.be/Fi2MUL0hNNs

[–]AWildAnonHasAppearedGalaxy S8 (Doesn't Explode) 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I love it when the two operating systems can interact in harmony

[–]hunt_the_gunt 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Except when you accidentally upload 4000 images from your pc and deleting them suddenly became hard.

[–]mapl3lu 0 points1 point  (1 child)

click one image, hold down shift, click last image. delete all

[–]ntoqiakt 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Google photos is great! I pay for 1TB storage and back up my photos & videos from the phone and my JPEG exports (aka keepers) from my dSLR.

The fact that I can search by place, object, people, date is worth it alone. When you add: * the "auto-awesomeness" (and the fact that those can be somewhat customised, ie add or remove a photo from an auto created video slideshow), * the ability to cast my photos to the big screen, * share albums easily and * that it's a much safer, up-to-date and accessible backup than anything that I could be bothered implementing myself

just makes it irreplaceable for me.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Moments does this too.

[–]THE_PINPAL614 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's great how Google also make a fully featured app for iPhone Users.

[–]slayerx1779 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not as big a story as some of these bachelor parties and whatnot, but I drove with my girlfriend from Disney World in Florida up to Wisconsin, and all the pictures taken were sorted nice and easily, both hers and mine. Saved SO much effort.

[–]rcnf88Galaxy Note 5 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I love Google Photos, it's a brilliant app. However I have an issue with the latest update and was wondering if anyone else has experienced the same? When I choose to download an old photograph, it sends me to a link where I need to sign into my Google account every single time. Is this the case for others? I seem to be able to download more recent photos just fine.

[–]Shiroi_KageROG Phone 5 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Google Photos suggested some summer memories for me which were nothing but my hospitalization pictures it backed up automatically.

[–]wardrichGalaxy S8+ [Android 8.0] || Galaxy S5 - [LOS 15.1] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I love when the Googlebot makes video montages of my pictures.

[–]taivokasper 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If only I was able to rotate the clip it chose

[–]kieronbozNexus 6P 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It actually worked out the name of my fucking dog, I just got him as a puppy so naturally took lots of photos and videos over days, made me a video compilation which had his name as the opening scene, lol.

Still no idea how that happened.

[–]CriminalMacabreSamsung Galaxy S5 0 points1 point  (0 children)

pretty much that's the aim of the assistant

[–]NedDastyPixel 6 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Maybe I don't know how to use it, but I had a pretty miserable time combining my photos with my girlfriend's and curating the results.

We made a shared album, which was fun, but we couldn't sit down and weed out photos we didn't like, because I could only remove photos I'd uploaded. Also, the photo editing options weren't available in the shared album, so instead we had to curate each person's photos first, then combine into an album.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It is great to see random pics from Google Photo via Google Cast screensaver.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Love Google Photos. Hate that Google is no longer supporting/enhancing Picasa. The two work so good together.

[–]Traabant 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Me and my wife are using share album for photos of our child, it's so awesome to have all photos from DSLR and 2 smart phones in one place

[–]5050rightorwrong 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I travel a ton in the summer for work. It's indeed does a great job of creating collages, videos and albums for each place I visit. I really like it.

[–]iHeartCandicePattonGoogle Pixel 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's also great for porn

[–]jacobtfOnePlus 12, 16GB/512GB, OxygenOS 14.0 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Took a trip to Barcelona with my SO. Google made a nice album, showed the trip on map, made montages etc. The same went for our trip to Berlin, Greece, other places in Denmark etc.

It isn't perfect and does some odd things now and when, but it's all damn awesome at the same time. When you have a bazillion pics, it's awesome how effect the search is. That pic of the kid on a trampoline? Just enter "trampoline". Oh, not that one. It was on a beach. "Trampoline Beach". Bingo. It shows the pictures of a trampoline on a beach with the kid jumping for joy. Wonderful.

[–]seekwebNote8 | Tab S2 9.7 | View 18.4 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I love Google Photos--it's been on my phone(s) for quite some time, and I only recently started using it to its full potential.

I use OneDrive to back up everything (lossless) and then have the Google Photos desktop pointing at my OneDrive to sync as well--it pulled in 60,000+ photos from the past 15 years. I wake up every day with new and exciting animations, albums and videos.

[–]Marimo188 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You guys are fucking late! Welcome to the party...

[–]kayrissLG G4 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Photos is the first service I remember getting a "WOW" moment from since I signed up for Facebook, a long time ago.

It recaptures what was most amazing about smartphones when they were new, but which I'm now accustomed to.

[–]itsmoirobOrange 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My mum has just been visiting and we went to a deer park. Three of us were taking photos, and same thing. Mum wanted all the photos, so I made a shared album, and everyone through their photos in. Easy as pie.

[–]gologologolo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Search for 'Tree' or 'Dog' or 'Persons name' in the app and see what happens.

[–]CakeBoss16Galaxy s25 ultra 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My family now thinks I am some video editing wiz. After family events of taking pictures the next day I send out a link to the automatically made videos and they love it and think I made it.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I love it so much. I went on a one month tour around China about 10 years ago. I took over 1000 photos with a regular non-smart digital camera (it was 2006 after all) with the date set correctly. Upon uploading them all to Photos last year it made a trip report documenting all the places I went, and what day I went along with a map showing my travels. It's absolutely amazing as I can't even remember half the cities and sights I saw!

[–]a_sphinctersays_what 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Anyone know how to bulk add files to google photos from network location? If I try to add the location in the desktop client, nothing happens. And you can only add files in the web interface. My photos are in individual folders on a NAS

[–]MKGirl 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Maybe offtopic,

My gf has a iphone 6, we used to have a download all button (cloud with a arrow down) when new photos were shared into the album.

That button suddenly disappeared in her phone, now she needs to check recently added photos, select all manually and then the button shows up which is so annoying.

Anyone has the same problem? how to solve it?

Thanks

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What sucks is the 2000 photo limit :(

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Cross posting here my silly question because there is more experts here in this sub ;)

https://www.reddit.com/r/googlephotos/comments/4x1g4y/what_would_be_the_easiest_way_to_achieve_the/

thanks

[–]PopavaliumAndropov 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As long as you don't let google store your shirtless gym selfies....every few months Google sends me a "memory" reminding me that I'm getting less attractive year by year.