Google Photos offers a seamless solution for backing up your precious memories. This guide provides a comprehensive walkthrough on how to back up your photos and videos to Google, ensuring they’re safe, accessible, and synced across all your devices.
Google Photos supports automatic backups from various devices, including phones, tablets, and computers. This ensures your photos and videos are consistently saved and updated in the cloud. Furthermore, Google Photos’ synchronization feature keeps your images accessible from any device, eliminating the worry of losing your memories.
To initiate the backup process, navigate to the Google Photos app. Tap on your account avatar located in the top right corner, then proceed to “Photo settings.” Finally, select “Back up & sync” to enable the automatic backup function.
Understanding Google Photos Backup: Size and Format Requirements
Google Photos automatically backs up your photos and videos, provided they adhere to specific size and format guidelines. Each photo must be under 200MB and have a resolution lower than 150 megapixels. Videos should not exceed 10GB in size. Images smaller than 256×256 pixels are excluded to prevent backups of thumbnails and icons. Modern smartphones, like the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, with its 108-megapixel camera, approach these limits, so it’s important to be mindful of file sizes.
Google Photos accommodates a wide range of image formats, including JPG, HEIC (commonly used by iPhones), PNG, WEBP, GIF, and various RAW formats. Similarly, it supports common and less common video formats such as MPG, MOD, MMW, TOD, WMV, ASF, AVI, DIVX, MOV, M4V, 3GP, 3G2, MP4, M2T, M2TS, MTS, and MKV.
Google Photos Backup Quality Options: High Quality vs. Original Quality
Google Photos offers two backup quality options: “High Quality” and “Original Quality.”
High Quality compresses photos and videos slightly to optimize storage space. This compression may result in a minor reduction in image quality. The advantage of this option is that it’s entirely free and doesn’t count towards your Google Account storage quota.
Original Quality preserves the original resolution and image quality of your photos and videos without any compression. While this option ensures pristine image quality, it consumes your Google Account storage.
dave june
Managing Storage with Google One
Opting for “Original Quality” backups might necessitate subscribing to Google One, especially if you have a large photo and video library. Google One provides various storage plans, including 100GB for $1.99 per month, 200GB for $2.99 per month, and 2TB for $9.99 per month, offering flexibility to suit different storage needs. Keep in mind that since June 1, 2021, new high-quality images also count towards your Google Account storage. Therefore, subscribing to Google One might be necessary to continue utilizing Google Photos backup seamlessly.
Conclusion: Ensuring Your Memories are Safe and Accessible with Google Photos
Google Photos provides a reliable and convenient way to back up your photos and videos. By understanding the different quality settings and managing your storage effectively, you can safeguard your cherished memories and access them from any device. Choosing the right backup option and storage plan ensures your photos and videos are preserved in the quality you desire while managing your Google Account storage efficiently.
