As of June 1, photos you upload to Google Photos will be deducted from the free storage limit, which means you’ll have to pay for a Google One subscription if you want to save all photos and videos to your mobile.
You can, of course, look for alternative ways to store them in the cloud, but the truth is, Google Photos is a great way to view your photos and find them even filtering them by people, location, and time.
This is why it makes sense to have all of your photos in Google Photos. If you haven’t already, now is the time to do it. If you do this before June 1, you can store them for free.
Exactly: after this date, the photos you uploaded to Google Photos will continue on Google’s servers and will not be deleted or the account will be blocked if you do not pay. In fact, it is something that creates some confusion.
If, like us, you have a photo gallery full of images from before smartphone, you probably saved them to a hard drive. It is not very easy to download them, but there are two ways to do it (one of them is automatic).
How to Upload Photos to Google Photos Using Web Browser
Before explaining the better option of the two, we’ll explain the more obvious one: go to the Google Photos page and click “Download”.
Unfortunately, this simple method won’t work for most people, as the “Download” option in Google Photos will download all the files in one folder.
Most people keep their photos in different folders so they have a scrapbook for every occasion. Unless you don’t mind going folder by folder uploading the photos you saved in each one, this option won’t be practical for you.
You can do the laborious work of using the “Download” button for every folder you have, but it won’t be practical if you have dozens or even hundreds of folders.
But if you do decide to go with this option, we recommend that you try one or two first and verify that Google Photos correctly identifies where you took them. Otherwise, it will be very difficult to find them later.
Once uploaded, you will be able to enter the date you took them (for example, “May 22, 2000”), and all photos from that day will be displayed. Otherwise, search for the exact name of the photo you just uploaded and Google Photos will show it to you. Click on the “i” symbol and you will see the photo information.
If there is a problem and the date the photo was taken is not correctly identified, you will need to use a tool to edit the metadata.
How to Upload Photos to Google Photos Using Backup and Sync
We’ve already come to the best way to upload your entire photo gallery to Google Photos. You will need to download the “Backup & Sync” feature, choose a folder or folders to sync, and then wait for your photos and videos to download.
If you saved these photos to a NAS device like in our case, you may find that you cannot select the root folder in “Backup and Sync”. You will need to create a folder inside and then move all the folders to the created one.
Before continuing, remember that this only works on Windows computers and you will need to install the Google Photos app on Android or iPhone if you want to upload photos from your mobile. This guide is for those who have done it before and want to save photos from their laptop or Windows PC.
We explain, step by step, how to install ‘Backup and sync’ and upload all your photos to Google Photos.
1. First, go to the Google Photos website and click the “Download” button.
2. Once downloaded, double click on the file (named “installbackupandsync.exe”) and click on the “START” button.
3. You will need to sign in to your Google Account, the one you use for Google Photos.
4. On the settings screen, choose “Back up photos and videos”.
5. Then you need to choose the folders where the photos you want to download are located. It can be as simple as clicking “Photos” (like in the photo), but you can have them stored elsewhere (a folder on your hard drive, external drive, or NAS).
You can sync multiple folders, but you won’t be able to select multiple folders at the same time.
6. Make sure the “High Quality” option is selected, as this is the only option that will not deduct your storage quota.
7. Click “START” and the selected photos and videos will begin uploading to your Google Photos.
8. If you want to check the progress, click on the “^” symbol in the Windows toolbar and click on the symbol of a small white cloud. You will see a list of files being downloaded.
The length of the process will depend on the number of photos and videos you want to download, as well as the download speed of your internet connection. This is generally lower than the download speed.
Leave your laptop or computer on while all your files are downloading. In our case, with a download speed of 16 Mbps, it took about 24 hours to download 30,000 photos and videos from hundreds of folders on the NAS drive.
.
