Preserve battery life when backing up
Google Photos has a useful ‘Backup & sync’ feature, which – once activated – automatically backs up your snaps when your phone or tablet has a Wi-Fi connection. If you notice your battery life suffering as a result of backups running in the background, you can easily fix the problem by setting Photos to only back up your pictures when your device is charging. To do this, open the main Photos menu, tap Settings and choose ‘Backup & Sync’. Scroll down and switch the option ‘While charging only’ to the On position.
Back up photos from other apps
Photos taken with the default Android camera app are backed up automatically, but you can also upload images from other apps, such as Instagram. From the ‘Backup & sync’ Settings menu, select ‘Choose folders to back up...’ and select the directories containing the images you want to save to Google Photos. To check the progress of the upload, make sure you’re connected to a Wi-Fi network, then open Assistant from the main menu.
Upload photos from your PC
Google Photos lets you back up pictures from your PC as well as your phone or tablet. Just visit the website at photos.google.com in any browser and drag and drop files to the Photos timeline. Alternatively, install the Desktop uploader (photos.google.com/apps) and select specific devices and folders to sync with the service. When you first run Google Photos Backup, you can tick boxes for Cameras & Storage Cards, Desktop and My Pictures. There’s also an Add button that lets you select other folders you want to back up. Further down the page, you’ll find the usual options to upload your photos in either ‘High’ or ‘Original’ quality.
View your photos in Google Drive
Google Drive and Photos are separate tools, but you can store your snaps in both without taking up any extra storage. Open Drive’s Settings and tick the box to ‘Automatically put your Google Photos into a folder in My Drive’. Your photos are sorted into folders numbered according to the year and month they were taken. By also downloading the Drive Desktop app, you can sync copies of all your smartphone snaps to your PC.
Select multiple images with a swipe
When you view your Photos timeline on your phone or tablet, you can quickly change the number of images on a page by pinching to zoom in and out. The app also lets you use a simple swipe gesture to select multiple images. To do this, tap and hold a thumbnail until the blue status bar appears, then simply swipe your finger in the direction of the photos you want to highlight. The status bar shows the total number of images you’ve selected and you can fine-tune your selection by choosing more photos individually or use the shortcut buttons to delete or share the images.
Search for anything
The search function in Google Photos intelligently sorts your snaps into Places (where they’ve been taken), Things (the subjects you’ve captured including sky, cars, concerts and so on), and Types of file (videos and creations, for example). You’re not limited to its suggestions and can try searching for any place that you might have taken a photo or anything you might have taken a photo of. You can even combine the two elements and search for a thing and a place, for example, ‘cars in Paris’. Alternatively, you can narrow your search by entering a date, such as ‘Paris February 2016’.
Collaborate with shared albums
If you’ve been on holiday with a group of friends, Photos’ Shared Albums option provides an excellent platform for instantly swapping photos without having to upload them for the whole world to see. To create a new shared album, tap the ‘+’ icon on the Photos timeline and select Shared Album. Choose at least one image you want to add (don’t worry, you can add more later), name the album and select Share to copy its link or share it via email. Next, tap the three-dot icon, select Sharing Options and make sure that Collaborate is activated, so that other people can add photos.
All your photos will be shown in a chronological timeline along with the names of the users who captured them. To save another user’s image to your library, select it and tap the cloud icon. To avoid sharing information about where your photographs were taken in shared albums, switch on ‘Remove geo-location’ from the Settings menu.
Import your videos to YouTube
You can add videos to YouTube directly from Google Photos, which saves you having to upload large files twice. Simply visit youtube.com/upload and click the Import button in the sidebar to make a pop-up appear that lets you browse all the videos you’ve uploaded to Google Photos. Click a video, then click the Select button and YouTube lets you choose a name and description for the listing. Choose an appropriate Privacy setting from the drop-down menu, then click Publish.
Cast photos to your TV
If you have a Chromecast, you can use the Google Photos app to display your entire photo library on a TV screen. To take advantage of this feature, open the app, tap the Chromecast icon and select your Chromecast. Now, when you open a photo or video, it’ll be displayed on the big screen. To change the image, simply swipe through your library. To stop casting, tap the Chromecast button again and select Disconnect.
Download all your photos
You can download all the files in your Google Photos library at once, using just a few clicks. Visit bit.ly/takeout391, click ‘Select none’ and tick the box next to Google Photos. A drop-down menu lets you choose to download all photo albums or you can choose ‘Select photo albums’ to pick the images you want to download based on the dates they were taken. Click Next and choose a file format for the archive. Note that archives larger than 2GB will be split into multiple ZIP files.
GET GOOGLE PHOTOS HELP VIA TWITTER
Google Photos recently introduced live Twitter support via the @googlephotos handle and #googlephotos hashtag, which offers users around the world free support between 8am and 5pm Pacific Time (4pm and 1am GMT) on all days except for (US) holidays. If you need advice with something related to Google Photos, we recommend following its Twitter account before sending your tweet, because it will allow the team to contact you via direct message and offer more detailed, step-by-step guidance.