Google Photos is a beloved app for managing your photo collection, as well as for editing and sharing images. For several years now you can also archive photos. What does that mean?
If you regularly use Google Photos on your smartphone or desktop, you’ve probably come across the archive button already. The function of the function is just not clear to everyone.
With the archive button you can save photos without deleting them. You will no longer see the images in your collection, but they are still stored in the cloud. The advantage of this is that you can clean up your photo collection without having to delete the photos. You can separate screenshots, embarrassing selfies or copies of recipes that you want to refer to later from your beautiful landscape photos and baby snapshots.
Images that you archive are therefore safely stored in the cloud, just like all other photos in the Google app.
Also read: Edit videos with Google Photos
How to archive photos
On your PC go to photos.google.com to go to your photo collection. Click on a photo and then on the three vertical dots. Here you will find the option To archive†The key combination Shift+A works too.
On an Android device, iPhone or iPad you can archive photos through the Google Photos app. Select a photo and tap the three horizontal or vertical dots (depending on the device you’re on), then tap Move to archiveâ€
The photos can be found in the archive folder. You can find this folder by going to photos.google.com on your PC and left clicking on the heading Archive†In the Google mobile app, tap at the bottom Library and then on Archiveâ€
Archived photos will still show up in your searches, making them easy to find. They also remain in any photo albums you have created.
Remove photos from the archive
If you want to restore photos from the archive to your library, you can do that on your PC by going to the folder Archive select one or more photos and press the key combination Shift+A to use.
Also on your mobile device, go to the archive folder and tap a photo to select. Hold your finger on the screen to select multiple images. Then tap the three dots and then Restore from archive†There’s nothing more to it!
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