Do you want to always have in your pocket absolutely every photo and video you've ever taken throughout your life? Imagine: you met an old friend whom you haven’t seen for a long time, and you can show him any photo and video from your archive right now - this second. Convenient, isn't it? Today I will tell you about the best, in my opinion, for storing pictures and videos. I use Google Photos on Android, iPhone, and Windows 10 and I really like it.

Google Photos (or Google Photos) - what is this service and what are its advantages?

Google Photos app for Android

People have already become accustomed to the presence of computer technology in our lives. However, not everyone uses cloud services yet - many, in the old fashioned way, prefer to store photos and videos on a hard drive and burn backup copies to DVD. And then stack them in barrels on shelves. However, nowadays the Internet has become so accessible and fast, even mobile on smartphones and tablets, that it would be a sin not to use it for these purposes.

Google Photos is a service that allows you to upload your photos and videos to the Google cloud for free and store them there for an unlimited amount of time without losing quality. To use Google Photos, all you need to do is create a Google account. If you already have an email account on gmail.com or a YouTube account, then you already have access.

Benefits of Google Photos

The Google Photos service provides you with the following benefits:

1. A backup copy of your entire photo and video archive. I don’t know if you experienced a hard drive failure, or if you accidentally deleted photos or not. But those who have experienced the loss of memories will understand why I put this advantage in the first place. Your photos are uploaded to the cloud as soon as you connect to Wi-Fi. But it is also possible to backup images and videos via the mobile Internet. More on this later in the article.
2. Quick access to any photo and video. You can view the archive not only from your computer and not only from home. You can watch and show photos and videos directly from your phone on the street. And all you need for this is a sufficient amount of mobile traffic in your tariff plan.
3. Unlimited disk space. You don't need to have a large hard drive or an expensive and large memory card on Android or iPhone. Once your gallery is uploaded to the Google cloud, you can delete photos and videos from your phone or computer. You can always watch them via the Internet. Of course, this is especially true for phones.
4. Synchronization between phones, tablets and PCs. Google Photos is very convenient to use if you have several gadgets. Just sign in to your Google account on your iPhone, iPad, Android phone and tablet, connect to the Internet, and instantly you'll have access to your entire gallery of photos and videos across all your devices. Moreover, when you take a photo on one device, it can be viewed on all others. There is no need to throw or copy anything anywhere.

What else can the service do?

Panoramic photo automatically created by Google Photos Assistant

• Create albums for convenient archive organization.
• Search by date, format, and tags. You can add tags to photos and videos yourself. To search by format, enter “video” or “panorama” into the search bar.
• View information about the date, time of shooting, and the camera with which the photo was taken. It is taken from EXIF.
• Edit images - crop, change brightness and contrast.
• You can share photos with specific users using Google authorization, and also send them via Viber, Skype, WhatsApp and any other messenger.
• The assistant can automatically create panoramic photos, animations and reminders of what happened on this day in past years from your content.
• You can also create animations and panoramas yourself.

How can I view photos and videos?

On your computer and laptop, you can view photos in any browser. On Android and iPhone you need to install one application. One will replace your standard gallery in Android or Apple Photos in iOS and will upload copies of images and videos to the cloud.

Google Photos on iPhone

Free or paid?

For each account, Google allocates 15 GB of cloud space for free. So, with Google Photos disk space, things are as follows. You have 2 plans to choose from:

1. You get unlimited storage for photos and videos, but allow the service to compress photos to 16 MegaPixel resolution and videos to 1080 FullHD quality. In this case, your 15 gigabytes are not consumed at all.
2. You choose to store photos and videos in original quality, without any compression or optimization by Google, but in this case you can only use 15 GB for free, and if you need more space, you have to buy it with money. By the way, 100 gigabytes of space in the Google cloud costs a little more than $1.5 per month. More details here: https://www.google.com/drive/pricing/

Personally, I am absolutely satisfied with the first - free option. I don’t have cameras that shoot with a resolution of more than 16 megapixels, and 4K video shot on phones looks quite normal even in quality compressed to FullHD. But you always have a choice.

For picky users, I will say this: I notice how, after uploading to Google Photos, the quality of the video deteriorates due to compression - the bitrate will be no more than 16 Mbit/sec, but in the photographs I see absolutely no changes noticeable to my eye.

With Google Photos free plan, you can upload an unlimited number of images and videos to the cloud. They will just be slightly optimized.

How to Install Google Photos on Android and iPhone

Apple Photos stores photos in iCloud, using up the free 2 gigabytes. And when they run out, you are persistently offered to buy more space. You won't be able to completely remove Apple Photos. You'll just have to turn off photo uploads to iCloud and clear out deleted content after your camera album syncs with the Google cloud.

Google Photos page on Google Play Store:

To install on an iPhone or iPad, launch the AppStore, enter “Google Photos” in the search and install the application:
After installing the application on Android or iPhone, everything is simple - open it and use it instead of the standard gallery or another application that you used before. All your pictures from the camera will be pulled up in Google Photos and will be uploaded to the cloud when connected via Wi-Fi. If it is possible to delete the previous application, do so. If it is not removed (for example, like the standard gallery in Lenovo and Samsung or like Apple Photos in the iPhone), it’s okay - just don’t use it, it won’t interfere.

Installing Google Photos on a computer with Windows 10, 8, 7

On Windows, the best way to do this is as follows.

The Backup and Sync program will be present in the system area of ​​the Taskbar. Here is her icon: During the verification of files on the computer and in the cloud, as well as synchronization, it will be animated - the arrows will rotate

Smart storage for your photos and videos.

Now you can quickly find and easily edit your photos or videos and instantly share them with friends.

Director of Google Photos

Thanks to mobile devices, people have become more likely to take photographs and shoot videos. As a result, they accumulate a lot of files that are easy to get confused in.

If photos and videos are stored on different devices, it can be difficult to remember which one has the file you need. In addition, sending several such photos or videos to a friend is quite problematic. Often this requires installing a special application.

We decided to find a more convenient way and created Google Photos - a secure storage for all your photos and videos. Using it, you can easily organize and share files.

Google Photos allows you to store an unlimited number of files and work with them on any device. They are automatically synchronized with cloud storage, so the pictures will not be lost and will always be available to you on your phone, tablet and computer.

And it's not a joke! With Google Photos, you can truly store as many high-quality photos and videos as you want for free.

Photos in Google Photos are automatically grouped by content, location, and other parameters. You don't need to create albums or manually tag or label photos. To find a photo, enter a keyword or phrase in the search bar, such as "dog", "Sochi beach" or "daughter's birthday". The results of automatic grouping are visible only to you.

You can send photos and videos from Google Photos to friends through email clients and applications such as Twitter, Hangouts or WhatsApp. But there is another, more convenient way.

Let's say you want to show a friend several photos at once. Select the files or albums you need and create a link to them. The person you send it to will be able to view these files and save them to the phone in their original quality with one tap on the screen. In this case, he will not have to enter logins and passwords. Nothing could be easier!

Want to try? Download the Google Photos app on your Android or iOS device, or use the web version.

How to use Google Photos, overview of functions

Google Photos became known to the public in 2015. But before that, there had been another product from a company called Picasa for a long time, which offered similar capabilities; it was closed quite recently in May 2016.

Google Photos is a service that emerged as a result of a separation from the widely used social network Google+.

It is free for all registered users and is a very convenient online storage for your photos and videos.

Therefore, I decided to take a closer look at the resource and show all the options it provides.

Before you really get started with the photos and other content you want to put in Google Foto, take a look at the management menu.

It is located in the upper left corner under the “three stripes” sign.

When you click on it, a drop-down menu appears, among other sections there is a “Settings” subsection:

Here you can specify, for example, the sizes of uploaded photos and videos.

Several options are available:

• Original size. In this case, it is possible to save the pictures entirely in the original format, but this will take up space in the storage;
• High quality. If you select this option, you will have to change the file size, but while maintaining quality, and in this case, the space on the free virtual disk will not be occupied;
• Buying additional space. Click “Purchase storage space” and select one of the provided tariff plans.

As you can see, each user receives a sufficient number of gigabytes completely free of charge, but they are always given the opportunity to use their account to the fullest.

To do this, just log in by registering first.

The next option you can set is “Google Assistant Suggestions”.

Here you will find two options - “Auto-creative”, which includes the creation of films, collages, animations based on uploaded photos, the second is “Recommended replacement cards”, this is useful when you do not want to flip a large number of images, everything will happen automatically.

Additional options - turn on or off the display of your Disc materials in the Gallery, mention of the filming location.

Plus, your attention is provided with an Activity Log, by opening it you will see what comments and messages have been made to the downloaded item recently.

Now let's proceed directly to adding the necessary files to our cloud.

To do this, there is a special field on the main page for quick loading - just drag the required image here and release it:

In this case, the download size is immediately set - standard resolution or preserving the original parameters:

Now I choose where to put the photo - in a shared album or in a new one that needs to be created:

I click “Create album”, enter a name, after entering Enter it is automatically saved and you can move on to other settings.

If I don’t want any more changes, I can click on the “checkmark” on the left:

Otherwise, I have at my disposal the icons on the right side of the panel (from left to right):

• Access settings. When you select this option, you must enable it for a specific album.

Additionally, collaborative editing can be configured (those who have a similar level of access will be listed below in the “People” section), as well as commenting.

• Hide from albums. Click on this option and the album will not be available to the public, but this can be corrected at any time;
• Delete album. This is a radical measure, after which restoration of the contents in any form will become impossible.

So, that's all you can do in Google Photos with your albums, specifically those listed in the Published section.

But there are also other standard collections here - “Filming Locations”, “Objects”, “Video”, “Collages”, “Animations”, “Movies”.

In the “Photos” section, the uploaded images are located all together in accordance with the date.

So, my page is no longer empty, all the previously uploaded photos are here. There are two ways to work with them in this section, for example, you select the desired object:

The second option for working with pictures is to click on the desired object, then you can work in the editor:

In the right block you will find all the options for changing the image:

• Color filters. These are all 18 filters - to apply, click on one of them, then use the slider to adjust the saturation.

• Brightness, color, saturation. And each option has corresponding subsections where you can adjust, say, shadows, vignetting or skin tone;
• Framing, rotation. The convenient thing about the editor is that you can very accurately set the angle of the image, or specify the required aspect ratio.

After making all the settings, there are two options left - reset the changes or click “Finish” for them to take effect.

On the main field there are also some options - “Cancel changes”, “Done”, when you click on the “three dots”, you also see the functions “Save a copy”, “Copy changes” and “Paste changes”.

But to compare what you got with the original, just press and hold the left mouse button - very convenient.

Assistant and computer applications

In addition to the “Albums” and “Photos” sections, there is Google Photos and “Assistant”, this is a special section where albums, collages, and animations are created.

To use it, I am asked to download the download tool:

Application for phone and other devices

Let's turn again to the control panel on the left - it drops out when you click on the “three stripes”.

Here at the very bottom there is an option “Download the application”, click on the link.

The first is the file for downloading to your computer, but this has already been done above.

But there are options for applications on the phone - separately for Android, as well as for devices running on the iOS platform (iPhone, iPad).

Search photos from your phone using the Android app

The advantage of using a mobile application is that it allows you to find photos, add filters, and also restore deleted materials.

You will find all the information on how to upload a photo on your device or how to find a person in the help information - support.google.com/photos/ link to the source from Google.

To do this, use the search in the application, where you can enter a name, place name or any other data.

This is a kind of photo scanner, thanks to which each user has the opportunity to put their own tags and use them to find their acquaintances and friends.

These tags can be grouped and used at your discretion - close/open access to them.

Of course, to add tags, you need the consent of the people used, and after deleting individual photos, they will be saved if they were previously allocated to a group.

So what is the exclusivity of the new Google Photos service, what makes it different from others?

Reviews from many users of the resource are quite good.

1. For example, the convenience of the web interface and a special mobile application is emphasized.
2. Uploading is fast and convenient, and you can store an unlimited number of photos without losing quality.
3. Everything is very mobile, nothing superfluous - duplicates are automatically detected, for example, and incorrectly positioned photos are rotated.
4. Smart search complements everything, and familiar hotkeys are used to work with files.

And finally - a fairly good, albeit simple, built-in editor, as well as the ability to create collages, panoramas, films, animation, and this happens automatically.

There is literally nothing to complain about, I recommend this online storage to anyone who loves a creative approach to everything.

Google account login, registration, password recovery

Having your own email in the Google search engine provides many opportunities, so a large number of users are looking for logging in or registering a Google account, as well as recovering a password in the event that they forget to save it in a separate place and cannot remember.

The entire basis of user interaction with the search engine giant, Google, is based on the synchronization of all available services through logging in from a previously registered Google account. Thus, without a personal account it is impossible to enjoy all the benefits, earnings or simply cooperation in various areas created specifically for people who are not professionally involved in Internet activities.

A striking example of the available opportunities for those registered in the system and having their own Google account is downloading applications on Android devices through the Play Market and cooperation with video hosting Youtube, with the possibility of monetization (earning money) on their own video clips, where anyone can create their own channel and make good money from this. This experience of synchronization through an account was later borrowed from Google by other search engines and is being developed to this day.

• In order to log into your Google account, you must first go to the main page of this search engine:

• After that, press the button “ To come in«.

• Enter login your email (if you have a previously created Google account) and click “ Further«.

• After entering password pay attention to the checkbox " Remain in the system“, so that in the future you can log into your Google account automatically when visiting Google services.

Registration and creation of your own Google account (Google)

• In order to register and create your own Google account, you need to log in to the registration page and start filling out the form, the email name during filling will be processed by the program to check if it is among the free ones, and also if you need to offer hints in accordance with the entered last name and first name.

• When you enter a password for your Google account, a hint will appear stating that you can enter at least 8 characters and the level of its security against guessing, as well as other recommendations, which you can carefully read if necessary.

• Next there will be lines for entering a mobile phone number and an existing spare registered email. You can enter your phone number as desired, only below you will be asked to prove that you are not a robot by entering the numbers in the picture, but please note that in order to receive full benefits on the services, in the future you will need to enter your phone number.
• By placing a checkmark in the place " Make Google my homepage» You confirm the replacement of the search engine, which will be installed automatically when you open a new tab.

• If you do not want to enter your phone number, you will need to enter the number from the picture.

• Check the box to agree to Google's terms and conditions and click " Further«

Recovering your account password

Google takes into account all the problems and difficulties that arose during the use of its services and the recovery of a lost account password, among other things.

1. If you used a phone number when registering a Google account, then by clicking on the password recovery link, it will be sent to the entered phone number.
2. If the phone number was not entered during registration, then by first going to “ To come in» from the main page of the Google search engine.

• Follow the link " Help is needed", located below.

• Or maybe the inscription " Forgot your password«

• A window will open with possible problems, where you need to set the checkbox to “ I do not remember the password", enter if the name of the email from which you need to recover the password does not appear automatically and click " Continue«.

• Next, you will be asked to enter the password you remember and click on “ Continue" or click " I find it difficult to answer“in the case when you don’t remember at all.

• After this, a window will open asking you to enter any other existing mail (if not, then you must create a new mail account).

• Now, you will be asked to enter the details of your last visit and created mail. If you can remember approximate, or better yet exact, email, you can recover your email, come up with a new password, and then log into your account.

Google services available for use

The Google company has a very large scale of development, affecting various areas of human activity, which can be discussed for a long time. By creating its own thematic services, Google strives to simplify the life of every person who needs some information or even help in an area of ​​activity unfamiliar to them. A very large number of such directions already exist and operate abroad, but they are just coming to us.

• In order to view or use it, you need to log into Google and open the tab in the right corner of the main page of the Google search engine, then click the inscription below “ More«.

• After that, click on “ Other Google services (No ratings yet)

Google Photos is a service for storing photos in the Google cloud. Thanks to this, the device can automatically back up photos taken using a smartphone and tablet. In addition, the user can share images, edit them and view them in automatically generated collections.

How to Create a Google Photos Account

1. Go to photos.google.com
2. Sign in to your Google account.

Google Photos is a new solution for working with photos and videos that meets the needs of modern users.

Google Photos is a service that is built into almost every Android phone. It competes with platforms such as Dropbox, OneDrive or Flickr.

Benefits of Google Photos

Google Photos has a whole range of photo editing tools

About Google Photos
Today, thanks to the use of Google's advanced image processing algorithms, as well as its attractive price (the basic version, which is enough for most of us, is free), Google Photos is the best place to store photos.

The service not only offers a secure safe for our photos, but also allows us to easily manage them.

The program is an exact reflection of all the functions offered by the Google Photos web service, only for Android. You will find here a photo search system, the ability to view and create collections (albums), as well as automatic photo enhancement.

Google Photos recognizes places, times, and people in photos and automatically creates albums based on that. The assistant available in the program will inform us about this, it will also create a panorama from similar photos and a slideshow from the images.

Edit videos and slideshows in minutes in the Google+ Photos app

Possibilities
The application allows you to edit photos by applying effects, cropping, rotating, and also adjusting some parameters (brightness, contrast). We will also find here the possibility of sharing with Facebook, Twitter, Google+, as well as the possibility of obtaining links to individual photos.

The program also allows automatic backup - we don't have to worry about losing photos from a lost or stolen device, the service will automatically copy them and store them in the manufacturer's cloud in unlimited space. The application is available for free.

Google Photos is a new service from Google that is designed to store, organize, and display your photos and videos. There are special mobile applications for iOS and Android, as well as a web interface that works directly in the browser. This article is dedicated specifically to the web service, and we’ll talk about mobile clients sometime next time.

1. Uploading files

If you need to upload files from your desktop to the Google Photos cloud, you can use a special program for this, the link to which you will find on this page (Windows and Mac OS X). In addition, it is possible to upload photos and videos manually. Just find the desired folder in the file manager and drag it to the service page. The download will begin automatically, and a tooltip in the lower left corner will inform you about its progress.

2. Unlimited photo storage

All owners of extensive photo archives will be pleased with the fact that they finally received a convenient photo hosting with unlimited space for storing files. To do this, just enable saving files in high quality in the Google Photos settings. You are allowed to store an unlimited number of photos and videos taken using a phone or camera with a resolution of no more than 16 megapixels. This is quite enough for most common purposes, including printing photographs.

3. Detection of duplicates

If there are duplicates among the uploaded photos, Google Photos will automatically identify them and leave only one copy. At the same time, the service’s smart algorithms are able to identify identical pictures not only using EXIF ​​analysis, but also by comparing captured objects.

4. Smart search

This feature is a killer feature of Google Photos, which is not surprising given its origins. All your photos go through a multi-stage analysis system that automatically recognizes the objects depicted on them and assigns tags based on them. This system works so well that it can even recognize many of the places where photographs were taken. Thus, you can type, for example, in the search bar “2013 Carpathian berries” and see exactly those photos that correspond to these parameters.

5. Selecting files

The Google Photos web interface uses the same selection rules as most file managers. To select multiple images, simply click on the first one, and then on the last one, but with the Shift key held down. And if you need to select random images, then click on them while holding down the Ctrl key.

6. Auto-creative

Another unique function of Google Photos, the analogues of which we have not seen in any photo hosting site. It lies in the fact that the service automatically creates various animations, collages, panoramas and films from your photos. The algorithms created by Google programmers are so skillful in selecting suitable photos and then processing them that you inevitably begin to think about the prospects of computer intelligence. To demonstrate the results of this digital creativity, there is a special “Assistant” section where you can view and save your favorite works.

7. Built-in editor

If you don't really like a photo, you can easily fix it in the built-in editor. You can manually play with the brightness, contrast and color sliders, but I recommend clicking on the automatic correction button, because, as we found out earlier, the silicon brains of Google Photos are very smart. In addition, you can apply all sorts of fashionable effects to photos, as well as crop or rotate the image.

8. Deleting files

Please note that if you delete files from Google Photos while autoupload and synchronization are enabled, they will be simultaneously deleted from all your devices on which the client of this service is installed. However, they are not deleted immediately, but first go to the trash, from where you can easily restore them if you wish. Files remain in the trash for 60 days, after which they are permanently deleted.

9. Content Types

If you want to quickly view files of only a certain type, then you need to click on the search bar and then scroll to the very bottom of the page. Here you will find thematic sections created based on the analysis of the contents of your pictures, as well as sections such as “Video”, “Creativity” (collages, panoramas, animations), “Google Drive” (files stored in this service) and so on . The number and composition of these tiles may vary depending on the contents of your photo archive.

10. Sharing

As you can see, Google Photos simply has no competitors in terms of its combination of innovative features and ease of use. Add to this the complete freeness and unlimited storage space for files, and the choice in favor of this service becomes obvious.

Have you already uploaded your photos to Google Photos?

Google Photos is a convenient service for storing photos and videos.

The best photo app on Earth. – The Verge
Google Photos is the new photo and video management app you can't live without. – Wired
Just upload your images and Google Photos will do the rest for you. – The New York Times

SAVE SPACE ON THE DEVICE. Running out of free space? You can quickly delete photos already uploaded to Google Photos from your device without worrying about losing them.

VISUAL SEARCH. You can now search photos based on the people, places, and objects they show, even if there are no tags on the photos.

MOVIES AND ANIMATIONS FROM YOUR PHOTOS AND VIDEOS. Google Photos automatically creates movies, collages, animations, and more from your photos. You can also do this yourself.

MODERN EDITING TOOLS. Transform photos with one touch: apply filters that recognize what is shown in the photo; adjust lighting or use other effective processing tools.

AUTOMATICALLY CREATED ALBUMS. Make your stories even more interesting. Google Photos will automatically collect your best photos from the event into a new album, and you can invite other users to add their photos to it.

LIVE ALBUMS. Thanks to Live Albums, sharing photos has never been easier. Google Photos can automatically add photos containing the people or animals you select to your album immediately after taking them. These photos are immediately available to those who have access to the album, without you having to manually share them.

COMMON LIBRARIES. You can give a selected user access to all your photos.

TOUCHING MEMORIES. Google Photos automatically creates collages of old photos taken on this day a year ago.

CHROMECAST SUPPORT. Using Chromecast, you can watch photos and videos on your TV.

UNLIMITED AND FREE STORAGE SPACE. You can upload any number of photos and videos completely free of charge. The only limitation: the video resolution should not exceed 1080p HD, and the photos should not exceed 16 megapixels. Your photos and videos are available only to you from any device connected to the Internet, as well as on photos.google.com.

You can purchase additional Google Account storage for Google Drive and Gmail files (if you store photos and videos in their original quality) with a Google One subscription. It starts at $1.99 per month for 100GB (in the US). Subscription pricing and availability vary by country.

If you purchased one of the plans in the Google One app, it will be charged to your iTunes account. Your subscription will renew automatically unless you turn it off at least 24 hours before the end of your next billing period. To set your subscription and auto-renewal options, go to your iTunes Account Settings after purchasing a plan.

Google Privacy Policy: https://google.com/intl/ru_RU/policies/privacy.
Google One Terms of Service: https://one.google.com/terms-of-service.

Please note that grouping by face is not available in all countries.

If GPS runs in the background for long periods of time, it can significantly reduce your device's battery life. The Google Photos app does not use GPS in the background until the user turns it on in Settings.