To automatically backup photos from any SD card or desktop folder, you need to download ‘ Backup & Sync ’ (Windows and Mac). There are two ways to start your Google Photos backup – from the desktop app or the smartphone app. Related: Best Camera Phones 2019 Google Photos – How do I backup my camera’s photos? As long as you don’t mind Google combing through your holiday snaps and hunting for famous landmarks to tag, of course. It’s this machine learning that gives Photos its eerily good search abilities – and a slight edge over the likes of Amazon Prime Photos, Shoebox and Cluster. Sounds a bit like Google Drive or Dropbox, right? While there are similarities, Photos is less a folder-based filing cabinet and more a giant photo album with basic editing tools and clever machine learning.

If you’re looking to make a cloud-based archive of your digital or analogue snaps, here’s how to set up your Google Photos backup in minutes… Google Photos – What is it?īefore we delve into how to get it running, here’s a short primer on what Google Photos is.Ī spin-off from Google+ that arrived in 2015, it’s a cloud-based archive for photos and video that can you access either via a web browser or your smartphone via an Android or iOS app. Like most Google apps, though, Photos has some idiosyncrasies that are worth learning to ensure your backup trundles away in the background like a friendly robot lawnmower.

You don’t have to run your entire life on Google services to get the benefits of Photos – it works across PCs, Macs, iOS devices and Android phones. Luckily, there are lots of easy ways to back up your digital or analogue snaps, and one of the best is using Google Photos. Backing up and organising your photos can feel like the digital equivalent of weeding you garden – it’s the job you put off until you’re overrun with nettles or, in this case, blurry dog photos.

Google photos