Get to know Google’s photo and video backup app like the back of your hand to get the most out of it.
Whether you love or hate Google, it’s hard to deny the effectiveness of Google Photos. Online photo backup service automatically syncs all captured photos and videos with your smartphone, free of charge with no storage limits for photos up to 16 megapixels and videos with a maximum resolution of 1080p.
But as easy to use as it is, Google Photos offers many features not always known to users: from navigation in the application to the ability to quickly create video montages, through the ability to easily search for a place or an object thanks to Google’s AI, discover all the possibilities offered by Google’s image saving platform, on iOS and Android.
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1. Free up space on your smartphone
If you are one of those users who always find themselves having to erase content from their device for lack of space, Google Photos could be of great help to you.
Once your device’s photos and videos are synced to Google Photos, the app offers to free up space on your device, by deleting all copies stored locally.
To free up space on your device, open the main menu and tap Free up space. Google Photos lists the number of items that will be deleted from your smartphone. Confirm their deletion by pressing Delete.
If you choose this option, your photos and videos will only be visible from the Google Photos app, and will no longer be available from your device’s native photo gallery. In addition, you must be connected to the Internet to access your images.
2. Quickly navigate the filmstrip
Google Photos provides the ability to quickly navigate your Camera Roll by viewing images by day, week, month, or year. To do this, just perform a simple Pinch-to-zoom (a pinch to zoom in / out).
3. Find a photo using the date
The search engine built into Google Photos is full of resources. You can, thanks to it, quickly find an image, by directly searching all the photos and videos taken during a given period.
Enter, for example, “September 2013” to display all images captured during that time period.
4. Sync photos from other apps
On Android, Google Photos backs up only photos and videos on Camera Roll by default. But it is also possible to synchronize other directories of your device which may contain images, photos and videos.
If you want, for example, to save your screenshots, or the content received on WhatsApp, you will have to declare it in Google Photos. To do this, deploy the main menu and go to the Application Settings.
Then enter the Backup and synchronization menu, then Folders of the device to be backed up. Select the directories you want to back up to Google Photos.
5. Select multiple photos at once
To clean up the Google Photos camera roll, you must keep your finger pressed on a first image to activate the “selection” mode, before tapping on the following images to select all the elements you want to delete.
Rather than choosing all the images one by one, it is possible to select several quickly. Keep your finger pressed on the first image, and slide your finger down (and left or right) to adjust your multiple selection.
6. Use the built-in editor to improve rendering
Google Photos isn’t just about backing up your images. The application has an editing tool allowing you to improve the rendering of your photos. To find it, open a photo and tap the second icon at the bottom of the screen.
Three editing tools are available: filters, brightness, color and sharpness settings as well as the image rotation module, the last option offered being used to open the image in a third-party application.
You can also get a Before / After preview by simply holding your finger on the image being edited. Save your changes by choosing Save a copy.
7. Edit your videos
As with images, Google Photos includes an editing tool for your videos. To find it, open a video and tap the center icon at the bottom of the screen.
To trim your video, move the start and end sliders to select the portion you want to keep and press Save. The original video is kept, and the selected passage is saved as a new video.
In addition to trimming your videos, Google Photos is able to stabilize or rotate them when they are in the wrong direction.
8. Generate an automatically edited movie
Video editing is not for everyone. In order not to let your vacation videos die, Google Photos proposes to generate an automatically edited movie from the various clips stored on your camera roll.
To turn your rushes into a real movie, go to the Assistant tab of Google Photos, press Movie and choose to create a New movie by pressing the + button.
Google Photos is capable of generating a movie with a maximum of 50 images or clips. Make your selection and press Create.
The application itself selects the passages of the clips that will appear in the final video. You can however modify them by acting directly on the dedicated handles. The same goes for the order of the clips.
Tap and hold each clip to change their order, and tap the buttons with three small dots to change options for each clip. Personalize the soundtrack by tapping the musical note icon. Once your project is finalized, export it by pressing the Save button.
9. Create collages and animations
You’ve probably already seen the Google Photos Assistant automatically generate animations when it detects certain images taken in a burst. But you don’t have to wait for Google Photos to do it for you.
You can easily generate some on your own by going to Assistant, and pressing Edit or Animation, depending on what you want to achieve.
Then select the images to integrate into the animation, and press Create. The animation is then automatically saved next to the images in Google Photos Camera Roll.
10. Search for objects and places
Thanks to the EXIF ​​data of your photos, but also thanks to Artificial Intelligence, Google Photos allows you to find images based on a location, but also photos containing objects or animals.
Experience it by entering the name of a city, a fruit, an animal, etc. in the search engine. All images with the item you are looking for in your query should stand out.
11. Play your albums on TV
Rather than showing your vacation photos to your loved ones from your smartphone, why not share them with them on a big screen? If you have a Google Chromecast connected to the same Wi-Fi network that your smartphone uses, you will be able to stream the photos saved in Google Photos directly to your TV.
Find the Chromecast icon at the top right of Google Photos and tap it to start casting your content. Consider creating a dedicated photo album beforehand if you don’t want to accidentally distribute other photos.
12. Activate dark mode
Natively, the application interface is white. But Android users have the option to turn on dark mode on Google Photos.
After having activated the options for the developers, it is enough to activate the night mode of Android (Android 8 and higher), so that it is reflected automatically on Google Photos.
The interface then changes to dark gray, highlighting the different photos in your gallery.
13. Manage sharing links
If you are used to sharing photos from your Google Photos gallery with third parties, there are several things to consider. Thus, the sharing link, once generated, allows anyone who has it to access your photo.
If you share a photo or video with a friend, nothing prevents them from sharing the link you sent to them so that someone else can view your photo. It will therefore be advisable, once you consider that sharing is no longer necessary, to review all the content that you have shared in order to put an end to said sharing.
To do this, go to the Sharing tab where all the items you have shared are listed, but also that your loved ones have shared with you.
Open each item you have shared, and tap on the options menu represented by three small dots at the top right of the interface and enter Options.
Uncheck the Share album option and confirm the end of the sharing by pressing Delete. The photo should then disappear from the list of shared items.
14. Delete the GPS coordinates of the shares
Another element to take into account, each time a photo or a video is shared, the associated GPS coordinates are also shared. However, it is possible to delete them before sharing.
To do this, deploy the main menu of Google Photos, and enter the Settings menu to activate the option Remove geolocation. Any content you share via a link will have their GPS coordinates erased before sharing.
15. Print a paper album
If your smartphone has the capacity to store tens of thousands of images, nothing beats a real paper album to keep a memory of a significant event. Google Photos offers the possibility of printing Photo Books from your personal albums, with prices starting from 13 euros.
To print a photobook, go to the Assistant tab, tap Photobook and then Start Photobook.
You just have to select your images one by one, within the limit of 100 photos maximum, to start your photo book. The higher the number of images, the more its price will increase.
Then change the order of the photos appearing on the pages of your book, select a cover, add a title and captions for each of your images, and confirm the printing of your photo book by pressing the Pay button.