The Coolest Stuff You Didn't Know Google Photos Could Do

The Coolest Stuff You Didn’t Know Google Photos Could Do

Google

I know I should be backing up my photos and data, but I’m stubborn. I usually think about doing so only when my computer unexpectedly refuses to start. I no longer need to worry about it. Google Photos is an easy, relatively frictionless way to back up, store, access, and share your photos. And it’s finally freed from Google+.

The best thing about Google Photos is it works exactly the way you think it should: Your photos live at photos.google.com and are categorized in user-named albums or “collections” by upload. Inside of each collection, you’ll see your photos in nice, large, easily navigable thumbnails, organized chronologically according to the date stamp on the photo (which is retained from your camera).

Photo metadata is sort of an expected feature for any photos platform, though, and Google Photos is far beyond such basics with the rest of its client. If you’re thinking about trying the service out, here’s what you need to know to make sure you get the most out of Google Photos.

Molly McHugh

Assistant

On the subject of repeats, Google knows some of us (read: me) take a ton of pictures of the same damn thing from slightly different angles or in slightly different lighting just to be sure we got it. Most of those repeat photos land in the dusty corners of our hard drives, never to be seen again.

Assistant finds those repeat photos and puts them to use by automatically creating photosets, collages, and animations. Suddenly, it’s kind of nice when a stranger to whom you’ve surrendered your phone to snap a picture of you and your best friend returns your device 20 photos heavier. You’ve got your requisite Instagram pic, but once you upload to Google Photos, Assistant will compile those pics in an animation.

Even better: It detects images that are similar and, when possible, stitches them together to create panoramas. While you may not have had the presence of mind to snap a panorama, Assistant will pick up on those overlapping images and create the panorama you never thought to take. Suddenly, you’ve got a new way to interact with your photos as Assistant detects what you’re trying to capture and helps you find the best way to preserve it.

Megan Logan

Sharing

Google Photos makes the work of sharing your photos relatively quick and painless as well. Google Docs users will find the process familiar: Simply click on the “Share” icon and choose to upload to Google+, Facebook, or Twitter, or opt for a shareable link.

And as someone who loathes the process of uploading and tagging and describing and titling photos on Facebook (it’s exhausting), it takes me exactly two seconds to name the album. Google knows the faces of my mom and my dad and my dog and best friends, but it doesn’t pressure me to tag them. If Google Photos finds a great picture of me and mom, I’ll decide to share it on my own—which is very easy. But I know that the rest of my photos are just for me and that I won’t get a notification in two years that a Facebook acquaintance has pawed through my old photos and “liked” a few out of the blue. (Also, never ever do that.)

Organization

Thus far, the only thing that’s created some tension for me in Google Photos is the organization. I’m not wild about the fact all of my photos live in large collections, particularly because 1) the scroller-ball on my mouse is broken so scrolling is not my favorite thing and 2) I am the type of person who uploads 4,000 old photos at a time. As a self-aware stick in the mud, I don’t see that changing, so I’ll be on the lookout for a feature that groups my photos in a way that’s a little easier to navigate—perhaps by dates, events, or locations. Thankfully, Google Photos alleviates this a bit with a pretty incredible search function…

Search

Despite the primary organization system that leaves a bit to be desired, Google Photos makes your photos highly searchable and returns pretty accurate results based on content, location, faces, dates, etc.

There’s something comforting about knowing that you don’t have to implement a rigorous and highly-disciplined file-naming and sorting system to ensure that you’ll be able to find what you want within Google Photos. Looking for photos taken in Iowa? Easy: search “Iowa.” Want to dig up photos of your Christmas tree from last year so you can remind Mom how crooked it was? Just search “Christmas.”

Still, I’d love to see a dashboard where I can browse these groups, rather than having to default to the search pane. They’re easy to find there, sure, but that isn’t typically the first place I’m going to look if I want to browse all my photos that feature People. Fortunately, for now it works almost as well as a sorted dashboard, provided you learn to look there.

It isn’t all macro-sunflower shots and fuzzy puppy portraits, though. There are a few things you should be aware of before you upload your entire body of work to Google Photos.

Licensing

Google’s Terms of Service clearly state that “You retain ownership of any intellectual property rights that you hold in that content. In short, what belongs to you stays yours.” Which is great news. However, the next passage of the ToS is something to consider carefully:

“When you upload, submit, store, send or receive content to or through our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide licence to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes that we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. The rights that you grant in this licence are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting and improving our Services, and to develop new ones. This licence continues even if you stop using our Services.”

Now, it’s important to note that this is the ToS for all of Google’s services, not just photos. What’s more, this is a very typical passage in Terms of Service agreements. Google’s not the only company that has a passage like this one—in fact, it’s likely that the majority of the services that you use include something similar. So what does it mean?

Essentially, by using Google Photos, you agree to license your photos to Google for the purpose of “operating, promoting and improving our Services, and to develop new ones.” Conceivably, this could include using your photos for marketing materials down the line. Your permission has been granted just by uploading. This could be a problem for professional photographers who sell their photos to clients who demand exclusive rights to the work.

It’s not terribly likely that you’ll wake up one morning to find that Google’s used your photo for a massive billboard campaign. But it could, and it’s important to know that before you surrender all your photos to Google.

However, Google wants to alleviate any concerns about a surprise attack on your photos. A spokesperson told me the following: 

“Google Photos will not use images or videos uploaded onto Google Photos commercially for any promotional purposes, unless we ask for the user’s explicit permission.  The photos you upload to Google Photos are private, unless you choose to share them.”

Quality

You knew this was coming.

It’s true: The free tier of Google Photos uploads photos in “High Quality,” meaning that the images are compressed from their original resolution, provided said original resolution exceeds 16 megapixels. Rest assured that for most people, that’s just fine. iPhone photos and photos from small-ish point and shoots won’t suffer from a major loss of quality. Those shooting on DSLRs and higher quality cameras should note that the images won’t be stored in full resolution for free. However, you can choose to save the images in their original resolution to your Google Drive—it’ll just count against your Drive storage.

The big picture? Google Photos may not be the perfect photo backup, storage, and sharing solution for everyone, but because of its ease of use, robust feature set, and surprisingly helpful Assistant tool, it’s going to be a great pick and a new standby for many—particularly those of us who have a hard time remembering to back up. In many ways, Google Photos feels like everything we wanted iCloud to be. There are few things more precious on our phones than photos, and finally there’s a convenient place to keep them.