Apple Photos and Google Photos

[lostless]

@Huntn The way you have to imagine cloud back up is like your library is on a database, not on your devices. When you make a change on one, the data base updates and reflects the others. Be it google photos or icloud photos. If you have optimized storage on, your devices will erase pictures from your device if it gets full, but still show you a thumbnail, because you are looking at a database. If you do use google photos for the first time, it will download your icloud library to your device so it can gain access the photos to upload to itself. It might be what the extra photos storage is while google photos needs access to upload. Icloud will erase them locally once the upload is done.
Another thing, You can set google photos to not auto upload and manually upload only what you want. Turn off backup and sync from settings. It will still show your entire icloud library in the google app, but photos that are backed up to google will show a cloud with a check mark. If you don't see that icon, its only in your icloud libary, but you can select the photos and upload from there.

 

[kaardowiq]

I am still on Apple photos for everything without any further backups. Currently I’m using 2,8T on my plan. I love how I can shoot videos on my phone and edit them later without any further transfer on my Mac or iPad. This is insane. Never had any problems with this..

 

[MisterSavage]

Google Photos show a dotted circle on the photos that aren't backed up yet. You need to leave the app open and let it back up your whole collection. You don't tell it what to upload.

Also your profile picture in the top right will have an incomplete blue circle when it's uploading data. You can touch it to see how many photos/videos are left to upload.

 

[Big Bad D]

I am still on Apple photos for everything without any further backups. Currently I’m using 2,8T on my plan. I love how I can shoot videos on my phone and edit them later without any further transfer on my Mac or iPad. This is insane. Never had any problems with this..

Same here. No problem with Apple Photos and iCloud photo storage. Works well that I can take photos on my iPhone or on my camera and upload to either iPad or Mac, and then have easy access to view or edit all my photos from any device. So really struggling to understand the real issues in this thread.

I don’t think I have anything to hide, but personally I would not trust all my data including photos - which contain significant personal data - to Google.

 

[kaardowiq]

I don’t think I have anything to hide, but personally I would not trust all my data including photos - which contain significant personal data - to Google.

Yep, think the best choice in a fully Apple ecosystem will be iCloud. As far there’s just a single non Apple device present I would switch to Google.

I don’t think it makes any difference anymore to keep photos out of the cloud - as we can see with CSAM all photos can be scanned locally, AI powered interpreted and without a full control of a device (affects Apple devices too), we can NEVER be sure that our data won’t leave our devices. We can only trust as far as possible…

 

[Huntn]

Back to the beginning.
You can store all your photos on your device and also store them in the cloud.
Or, you can store them all in the cloud and not store any on your device.

If you delete them in the cloud, it deletes them from the cloud everywhere and also from the copy in 'photos'

If you have a image in a folder like 'pictures' or in 'document' or somewhere like them it won't delete them from there if you delete them from the cloud and it won't delete them from the cloud if you delete them from there.

If you choose to store them all in the cloud and not keep them on your device then you can download them again to your device. All or singly.

You can 'Export's photos from the cloud to create a copy on your machine or to send by message or mail if you need to.

You can also export to an external hard drive from the cloud to back up. You will be given options about size, quality etc of the image produced. You can select all your images in the cloud and export them all up to an external drive very easily.

If you have one apple account and two people use it, then all their photos will be mixed together.

If you have a family account you have one icloud account (with whatever storage you have paid for in your account) and then you can have up to 5 members using that account, each with their own apple id.
Each will have their own photo library and they can choose to share any folders they like.
Only the person sharing will be able to delete the images from the cloud they have put up.

I hope that helps because there are some confusions there about icloud.

I haven't used google photos for a while but remember: you don't actually own your photos any more when you store them on google.
They say it doesn't matter and they wouldn't use them without your permission etc, but: you don't actually own the photos any more when you store them on google.

The reason this came up was only when my wife started running into issues with space on her iPad. If that had not been an issue, we’d be happy with iCloud. She has 100GB storage with it yet her iPad is full. She has pruned programs off, and I noticed a Setting>General>Offload Unused Apps which dropped 4GB off her iPad resolving the issue for now.

If iCloud offered a method where auto sync did not automatically happen, if there was some choice there for photos, I’d be using it.

Ultimately I don’t want an all or nothing proposition which iCloud is. It’s also why I have Mail turned off on my iOS devices and access all of my mail through Google Mail via browser, I have limited space on a portable device so I want access but I don’t want stuff on it, that is not necessary.

 

[Big Bad D]

The reason this came up was only when my wife started running into issues with space on her iPad. If that had not been an issue, we’d be happy with iCloud. She has 100GB storage with it yet her iPad is full. She has pruned programs off, and I noticed a Setting>General>Offload Unused Apps which dropped 4GB off her iPad resolving the issue for now.

If iCloud offered a method where auto sync did not automatically happen, if there was some choice there for photos, I’d be using it.

Ultimately I don’t want an all or nothing proposition which iCloud is. It’s also why I have Mail turned off on my iOS devices and access all of my mail through Google Mail via browser, I have limited space on a portable device so I want access but I don’t want stuff on it, that is not necessary.

Each to their own decision and way of working, but you seem to be making life more difficult than it really needs to be.

 

[sebastian...]

I'm not sure how it's on iOS, but I seem to remember that on Google Photos, if you delete a photo locally it can delete your photo in the google cloud as well. But still you can get what you want. After a while Google will prompt you to free up space and google will offer to delete all your photos and preserve them in the cloud.
If you don't wanna wait for Google's prompt, you can go to settings and press a button like "Free up space" In this way the app itself will delete your photos on your tablet, and of course they will not delete the photos in the cloud. It's possible Google Photos will also keep a thumbnail in your local gallery, but I'm not sure.

And you will have a local app called Google Photos where you can easily browse all your photos just like they are stored locally. Plus you have cool searching options. You can write: black white photos, and the search will only show BW photos. Or search Dogs, animals, yourself, people, only videos, and so on. Maybe iCloud has something similar.
And of course you can go on your laptop, write Photos, and google photos will appear in your browser and you can see any photos on a big screen.

 

[Msbeezy]

Back to the beginning.
You can store all your photos on your device and also store them in the cloud.
Or, you can store them all in the cloud and not store any on your device.

If you delete them in the cloud, it deletes them from the cloud everywhere and also from the copy in 'photos'

If you have a image in a folder like 'pictures' or in 'document' or somewhere like them it won't delete them from there if you delete them from the cloud and it won't delete them from the cloud if you delete them from there.

If you choose to store them all in the cloud and not keep them on your device then you can download them again to your device. All or singly.

You can 'Export's photos from the cloud to create a copy on your machine or to send by message or mail if you need to.

You can also export to an external hard drive from the cloud to back up. You will be given options about size, quality etc of the image produced. You can select all your images in the cloud and export them all up to an external drive very easily.

If you have one apple account and two people use it, then all their photos will be mixed together.

If you have a family account you have one icloud account (with whatever storage you have paid for in your account) and then you can have up to 5 members using that account, each with their own apple id.
Each will have their own photo library and they can choose to share any folders they like.
Only the person sharing will be able to delete the images from the cloud they have put up.

I hope that helps because there are some confusions there about icloud.

I haven't used google photos for a while but remember: you don't actually own your photos any more when you store them on google.
They say it doesn't matter and they wouldn't use them without your permission etc, but: you don't actually own the photos any more when you store them on google.

This is great info but another question...if I create a new photoslibrary on my mac in photos ...and in preferences select "use as systems photo library" will it populate from icloud or will the data on icloud be removed ?

 

[lostless]

"This is great info but another question...if I create a new photoslibrary on my mac in photos ...and in preferences select "use as systems photo library" will it populate from icloud or will the data on icloud be removed ?"

If you log into Icloud, It will sync your cloud with whatever you have on your mac on the new library. The only way to start a fresh icloud library is to disable icloud photos and wait 30 days for apple to permanently clear the icloud backup. Its like buying a new mac with a fresh photos library, as soon as icloud is used, it syncs up with what's in the cloud.

 

[Msbeezy]

"This is great info but another question...if I create a new photoslibrary on my mac in photos ...and in preferences select "use as systems photo library" will it populate from icloud or will the data on icloud be removed ?"

If you log into Icloud, It will sync your cloud with whatever you have on your mac on the new library. The only way to start a fresh icloud library is to disable icloud photos and wait 30 days for apple to permanently clear the icloud backup. Its like buying a new mac with a fresh photos library, as soon as icloud is used, it syncs up with what's in the cloud.

thanks but what I'm wondering is....if you opt to a new photoslibrary (hold options key at photo start and select new) in photo and select "use as systems photo library" for this new photoslibrary..since it has no files will it delete the photos on icloud or will it populate with the data on icloud...I dont want to loose anything from icloud...long story..my photolibrary was on a stand alone drive and backed up daily...original corrupted to I cloned from backup but there are files missing now...dunno why..but everything is still on icloud so I want to create the new photoslibrary on the repaired drive and get it current with icloud..not alter icloud..this make sense ?..tks

 

[lostless]

thanks but what I'm wondering is....if you opt to a new photoslibrary (hold options key at photo start and select new) in photo and select "use as systems photo library" for this new photoslibrary..since it has no files will it delete the photos on icloud or will it populate with the data on icloud...I dont want to loose anything from icloud...long story..my photolibrary was on a stand alone drive and backed up daily...original corrupted to I cloned from backup but there are files missing now...dunno why..but everything is still on icloud so I want to create the new photoslibrary on the repaired drive and get it current with icloud..not alter icloud..this make sense ?..tks

It will not effect your cloud library. Its like buying a new Mac and logging into your icloud photo library. You're just rebuilding the database when you create a new library.

 

[Msbeezy]

thanks but what I'm wondering is....if you opt to a new photoslibrary (hold options key at photo start and select new) in photo and select "use as systems photo library" for this new photoslibrary..since it has no files will it delete the photos on icloud or will it populate with the data on icloud...I dont want to loose anything from icloud...long story..my photolibrary was on a stand alone drive and backed up daily...original corrupted to I cloned from backup but there are files missing now...dunno why..but everything is still on icloud so I want to create the new photoslibrary on the repaired drive and get it current with icloud..not alter icloud..this make sense ?..tks

I've resolved

 

[Huntn]

1. Correct. iCloud is a syncing service. Delete it on your ______ device, it deletes it everywhere.
2. Google Photos makes it easy to sync all photos to Google via the Google Photos app on iOS/iPad OS.
3. It indexes them at first and then will back them up. This happens VERY SLOWLY unless you have the app in the foreground and opened. So I'm not surprised only 6 did it in the background.

How do you know? Click your account icon on the top right and you'll see Backing Up under your "Manage your Google Account" button.

Leave this opened until all the photos are uploaded to Google servers and you'll see a Backup Complete. May need to turn off screen timeout for the duration of the upload.

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Edit: Oops, this is the Mac forum. I'd recommend just installing Google Photos on your wife's iPad as the easiest way.

I kind of forgot about this but then 6 months later got back on it. This is what I've found:

May 2022- How to manage Photos on your Mac and use Google Photos for permanent storage.
(Opinion, subject to your consideration or correction. )

The problem with Photos (Apple) is that it wants to keep everything in synch, if you turn it (Photo iCloud Backup) on. As I understand it, it’s not intended as a backup by itself but primarily as a synch service. Therefore you can’t keep stuff in the iCloud at least conveniently and open up space on your iOS devices if your photos get too numerous and you want to remove them..

Yes there is a space saver storage option that provides thumbnails, but with thousands of photos can add up to a lot.
The problem with Photos (Apple) is that it wants to keep everything in synch, if you turn it on. As I understand it, it’s not intended as a backup by itself but as a synch service. Therefore you can’t keep stuff in the iCloud at least conveniently and open up space on your iOS devices by removing photos.

Condition: You want to clear up space on your iOS device, and even with the saving space option in Photos (iOS), all of your photos still take up a lot of space even as thumbnails, or you just want to get photos off of you iOS device but keep them stored.

A Solution for iOS:

• Install Google Photos.
• Allow access to all Photos.
• Select your Google Avatar (upper right)- this opens a Settings screen.
• Observe a meesage listed as “Backing Up…” that some number of items items are being backed up
• Select Google Photo Settings.
• Select Backup & Sync- This should be by default- on. I’ll assume not on, you would not see a mesaage about items being backed up.

The Process: After all of your items are backed up in Google Photos, if you want to remove photos from your iOS device, but keep them stored in Google Photos, keep this in mind, as long as Backup and Sync is turned on in Google Photos, it will mimic everything you do in Photos (iOS). Therefore if you want to remove the photos from your iOS device, but keep them backed up in Google Photos, you need to:

• Download and open Google Photos.
• Touch your Google Avatar (upper right screen).
• Select Google Photo Settings.
• Turn off Backup & Sync.
• Go to your iOS Device and delete any photo you want to get rid of. Warning with Settings: Photos: iCloud Photos: On- my understanding is that a photo removed on one iOS Device is removed from all.
• When finished removing photos, go back to Backup & Sync and turn that back on. My understanding is that this works, that Google Photos will not go back and resync after the fact, at least it did not for me.
• Also be aware that iCloud backup is separate backup from your Photos.

Ok so I want to do this with Photos on my MacOS. I'll research it. So far, I've not found a Google Photos app for MacOS. Advice appreciated.