Learn how to use Google Photos with this step-by-step guide. If you’re anything like us, you’re taking more photos than ever but there’s an important next step that’s often overlooked — organizing and saving.
Google Photos is our favorite solution for storing, organizing, and sharing photos and videos.
It’s easy to use and it’s free, yet many people don’t know about this useful service.
How to use Google Photos on Your Device?
Google Photos is a photo-sharing and storage service developed by Google. It was released in 2015 and now it is very popular all over the world.
Google Photos stores your photos and videos in the “cloud” — that’s just tech talk for online storage.
- Download the free app from the iOS App Store or Google Play Store.
- Open the app and sign in to your Google account. Chances are, you already have a Google account (like Gmail). If not, signing up is quick and easy.
- Once signed in, you just follow the prompts to start uploading your photos and videos. Be prepared: if you have a lot of photos and videos, this may take some time. Make sure you are connected to Wi-Fi if you don’t want to lose your mobile data.
Basics of Google Photos
In the past, you might have plugged your phone or camera into your computer and painstakingly transferred all your photos and videos. From there, you may have backed up your computer to an external hard drive.
While additional backups can still be a good idea, especially for important files, there are many benefits to storing your photos and videos in the cloud, such as:
It’s quick and easy — you can set backups to happen automatically when you’re connected to Wi-Fi.
You can access your photos or videos from any device (phone, tablet, computer) as long as you have internet access.
Sharing albums, photos, or videos with others is easy. Running out of storage on your phone is a thing of the past! After your photos or videos are uploaded, you can free up space on your phone.
Advantages of Google Photos
Here are the main reasons why we consider Google Photos to be the best cloud storage service:
- It is packed with multiple features to organize, use, share, and manage photos and videos.
- It works seamlessly on all devices.
- You don’t need to be overly tech-savvy to use Google Photos. It is quite intuitive and straightforward to navigate.
- You can create movies, animations, collages, and albums to save, share, or embed.
- You can access Google Lens to identify objects in images, copy and paste text from textbooks and documents, translate text in textbooks and signs, scan QR codes, and more.
How to View Your Photos and Videos?
To view your uploaded photos and videos, simply open the app or visit the Google Photos website from any device.
Visit https://photos.google.com on the web, or tap the Photos tab in your app to see all your photos sorted by date uploaded.
The great thing about Google Photos is that it doesn’t matter if you use multiple devices. As long as you’re signed in to your Google Account, you’ll be able to access your photos and videos.
Navigating the Google Photos app
The Google Photos app has three main tabs at the bottom: Photos, Search, and Library.
You’ll notice that the app looks quite different depending on whether you’re using an iPhone/iPad or an Android device.
- The first tab is Photos. This is where you see your past memories and latest photos.
- The next tab is Search. This is where you can search for your photos by person, category, map, or object. You can also view your creations: animations, collages, and movies.
- The third tab is Library. Here you will find your albums, favorites, archives, and trash. You can also create animations, collages, and movies through the Utilities option.
- You tap on an individual image to view it. This is how you access photo editing and sharing options.
Final Words
Google services are constantly protected by the world’s most advanced security infrastructure. This built-in protection detects and helps block online threats, so you can be confident that your personal information is safe.