Best strategy for using google photos to supplement apple photos

[Soybomb]

So far I haven't fully embraced cloud based file services. My "master" repository is a NAS on my network that I strategically sync files to other devices from. I admit this a bit dated and there's gains to be had by using modern services. It'd be great to use some of those features to help index and make sense of 20 years of photos for example.

My understanding is that Apple photos is multi-way sync and Google's service is one-way sync. I've fired up apple photos on my MBP, iphone, and ipad. I've uploaded my picture collection from my old pixel phone and a few directories of older pictures from my dslr's and set the MBP to download originals. My google photos account only has the originals from the pixel (in original quality since its free). I'd like to make apple photos my primary, but keep google as my backup place for easy sharing.

I'm thinking:
Let MBP continue to download originals. This provides my local backup copy of everything via timemachine too.
Most new photos will come from my iphone, but I should run google photos from the MBP instead of the phone. It will be less resource intensive on phone and also replicate in any other old non-iphone pictures I import into apple photos. If I ran it on the phone, it wouldn't pull in cloud photos.

Is that a sound plan? I think it feels more complicated than it probably is...

 

[spajky69]

Hi I do not use icloud for photos.I don't need sync between devices,but I need back up photos from 4 iphones. Everybody has google account a google photos app upload new photos automatically when connected to wifi,so I can delete photos on iphone safely without loosing them.
On my comp I can download photos from google and use them with any soft I want and,sort,delete,create albums online on google photos and access to them from any devices I'm log in my google account.

 

[aircanman]

Does google photos preserve the live photo data?

 

[BrianBaughn]

Does google photos preserve the live photo data?

Since 2016 although I personally don't know if the data is preserved 100%
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I have purchased extra Google space to use with Google Photos but they hosed me this year by eliminating the Google Photos folder from Google Drive. Now the only way for me to add photos is via the iOS app (which is fine) or via the web interface. The only way to get to my Google Photos originals on my computer is via the web interface. It's like having a backup…but no original. It would seem that the roles have reversed and now I have to treat Google Photos in the cloud as my originals and that I have to manually back them up on my computer!

Having a folder on my computer that synced to Google Photos was the main reason I chose that method. I'm not a fan of the mysterious Apple Photos database.