Iphone with google photos

[camerageek8]

My iphone has very limited free space, and I am looking for a cloud where I can save photos, safely store them there or save to my ext hard drive, and then delete from my phone. I have these questions though:
1. Apple's iCloud seems to not be a good option because if you delete the photo from the phone, it deleted it from the cloud, but as far as I can tell, this is not true of google photos, right? If I backup to google photos, I can delete the picture from my phone and still have it on google photos?
2. Are there any issues saving from google photos to your computer or external hard drive?
3. People say iphone picture are less than 16MP so they would not be compressed or altered when saved to google photos for the free storage, is this true? Are iphone photos saved in the original form to google photos?
4. If google decides to discontinue google photos some day, what would happen to all the photos saved there? I hope we would have advanced notice to at least save them elsewhere and not lose them.
5. When does google photos back up your iphone pics? I put under settings to use date to back up phone and videos but there seems to be a random lag of automatic backing up of the photos even when I have internet connection, of like 15-20 minutes.
6. Are there any issues with backing up iphone videos and any quality lost?

 

[AlliFlowers]

I've been using Google for my photos for many years (since it was Picassa). I automatically back up all my iPhone pictures. My relatives are recently surprised at how quickly and easily I was able to locate a photo from a family wedding back in 2008. "But you didn't have that iPhone then!"

 

[roeiz]

I use it. it's a bit less automatic than Icloud,
but it's free for limitless photos.. so do the math
(although it saves not in original resolution but compressed)

 

[nikusak]

I am not currently using Google Photos for backups (iCloud), I might give it a go again some day though.

Regarding question 1: if you delete a photo using iPhone’s own Photos app it will not be deleted from Google Photos. But if you delete it using Google Photos app, then it will be deleted from the cloud storage as well.

 

[xxray]

If you're concerned at all about privacy, I wouldn't trust Google with your photos, especially with the service being free. It's not really free.

 

[ke-iron]

Use iCloud photos and the optimized options for photos. It will store a thumbnail of the images on your phone and the full resolution in iCloud.

 

[silverblack]

Google photos never backup automatically for me. I had to run the app to “remind” it to backup. Am I doing it wrong?

 

[Newtons Apple]

Check out DropBox. All of my images are automatically backed up and stay there even if you delete on the phone. It may cost a small amount but you get what you pay for.

What I like best is there is no compression and what is downloaded is the full file with no manipulation. It is the way it SHOULD be.

 

[KingslayerG5]

I am not currently using Google Photos for backups (iCloud), I might give it a go again some day though.

Regarding question 1: if you delete a photo using iPhone’s own Photos app it will not be deleted from Google Photos. But if you delete it using Google Photos app, then it will be deleted from the cloud storage as well.

Actually the question is if they uploaded the photo from an iPhone and if got deleted it from that iPhone, does it get deleted in Google Photos? The answer is no.

I stopped buying microSD because of it. I barely started to use Google Photos earlier this year. It technically wasn't Picasa as Google closed it down. Google Photos came from the ashes of Google+ back in 2015.

Check Google's compression techniques. Their algorithms are fantastic like Silicon Valley's Pied Piper.

https://www.phonearena.com/news/Goo...ts-the-difference-and-should-you-care_id93938

High quality is 1080p. If you have the original Pixels, they get original quality for life. The Pixel 2 duo only gets original quality up to 2020. Unlimited high quality for life is good enough for most.

I actually find using Google Photos is better on iPhone than on Pixel! For some odd reason, I tried streaming some movies I uploaded to GP and my Pixel had some issues playing them. My LGs, Samsung, and iPhone were fine.

Another benefit for iPhone users is I can upload a movie which was originally AVI or MKV. Now iTunes won't recognize it so I can't add it on my iPhone unless I convert it. If uploaded to Google Photos, the iPhone will still stream it. Saves time of converting it but you need an Android to upload the video.

Another benefit is uploading photos, I can delete it and get it at a smaller size. My G5 doesn't have a camera settings option to lower the MP. It's at 16 MP by default and each photo from the main rear is 7 MB. It's down to 1-3 MB if restored from Google Photos.

Since I carry multiple phones, I don't have to sync my phones to a computer for transfer so each of them have it. I can just use the app and they will all get it but manually saved to them. The app needs work though. I wish we can mass-select photos we want to restore. Only does it one at a time.
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If you're concerned at all about privacy, I wouldn't trust Google with your photos, especially with the service being free. It's not really free.

I don't think anything is really privacy-free once you go online.

Google Search, YouTube, Google Maps, Gmail, Google Voice, and Google Photos aren't truly free. YouTube is really getting bad with ads and it's the second most used search engine behind Google. People just use them all anyway the way they use Facebook, Twitter, and Amazon.

Once we log online, we are all vulnerable.

 

[camerageek8]

Thanks everyone, but I still don't have a clear answer. If I take pictures with my iphone, and I have the limitless "high res" google photos, will my iphone photos still my compressed? I have read that I phone photos are under 16 mp it might not need to be compressed, but I am still unclear. I wonder the same for videos taken with my iphone. I want to keep the resolution intact.

 

[Technarchy]

I consider Google Photos a must. Mostly because I started with android so my photo library goes back to before my first iPhone.

 

[BrianBaughn]

If you use Google Photos and your Google account is using less than the free 15GB of data the photos will be stored at original resolution on the Google servers. After 15GB, photos will be compressed. I'm not sure what the video situation is but I suspect with the free data amount the videos are compressed in some way.

For $20/year you can increase your Google storage to 100GB and store photos and videos at full resolution up to that amount.

The Google Photos iOS app can be set to backup photos from the Photos app automatically. I prefer to do it manually (or when I open the Google Photos app).

You can sync Google Photos to your computer using the "Backup and Sync from Google" app. You can also run that app and disable syncing of the Photos folder.

If Google decides to end Google Photos I'm sure they'll let you know. However, you should have your own backup somewhere.

One downside to using GP is that other apps do not interact with it 100% in the way that they do with Photos. If you have deleted photos from the Photos app after they sync with GP (as I do) you may have to copy a particular photo back to Photos to use it with some other apps.