A picture is worth a thousand words, or so the saying goes. Something of great value should be kept in a safe and secure place. It might be a good idea to set up your mobile device to back up all your photos and videos to another location, just in case.
Don’t get me wrong, cell phones these days come with loads of data storage. More than enough to hold a few thousand photos if you wish.
However, mobiles are not safe at all. You can forget about it and leave it at work, or have it slip out of your pocket while showing a movie, get lost while out shopping, or get stolen at night outside.
Each of these possibilities is a serious security risk to your privacy. Add to the fact that these photos may be unique and the probability of seeing them again is zero, and then you may begin to understand the importance of the backup process.
“Well, you convinced me. I have a lot of pictures that mean a lot to me. How can I protect them? “
One great way to protect your photos from disappearing into the ether is by backing them up to Google Drive, or more specifically, Google Photos. You can do this from your computer as well as from your Android and iOS mobile devices.
Backup Photos to Google Drive
No matter what mobile device you’re using, you’ll need to download and already install the Google Drive app on the device. For the PC version, you can just visit the site with your browser or download the Backup & Sync desktop app.
For the Google Drive app, visit the iOS App Store or Google Play Store to download and install it on your device. The Backup & Sync app can be found here .
Let’s start with mobile devices.
iOS devices
Google Drive can be used as a great way to back up most of the content on your iOS device. Specifically, photos will be backed up to Google Photos. The process is simple, but before you start backing up:
- Make sure that your device is currently connected to a Wi-Fi network.
- Understand that when you back up your photos multiple times, only the most recent photos will be saved and stored.
- If you are currently at maximum storage capacity, your photos will not be backed up to Google Photos.
- This can be avoided by upgrading your storage to Google Drive.
- Photos organized into albums will be moved, but the albums themselves will not.
Once you download and install the Google Drive app on your device:
Open the Google Drive app on your iOS device and tap the menu (three vertically stacked lines) in the top left corner.
- From the menu, tap Settings .
- Click on Backup .
- Finally, click Start Backup to start the backup process.
If the backup does not complete, and you receive the error message “Backup Not Completed”, you should try it again.
The problem may only be temporary. If it fails again, make sure your WiFi connection is stable.
Android devices
Just like the iOS process, you’ll need to download and install the Google Drive app on your device before you can get started.
go ahead and:
- Launch the Google Drive app from your Android device and tap the menu icon (three vertically stacked lines) at the top left.
- Open Settings.
- Click Add Auto to add your photos to Google Drive.
You can view and edit your photos via Google Drive app or Google Photos app. If the backup fails, see Follow the same troubleshooting steps as described in the iOS Devices section .
Computer
One of the easiest ways to back up your photos, videos and other data at once is to use the Backup & Sync desktop app. The following requirements must be met before you can start the download:
- Your internet connection must be strong. It is better to use an Ethernet connection when transferring data.
- All images cannot be smaller than 256 x 256 pixels and may not exceed 75MB. This is a requirement for each image.
- The only file types allowed are . jpg , .png, .webp, and some other RAW images.
Once the requirements are met and Backup & Sync is installed on your computer:
- Sign in to Google Drive , click the gear icon and select Get Backup and Sync to PC.
- Scroll down and select Download under Backup and sync.
- Install Backup and Sync and sign in with your Google Drive account.
- Select the folders you wish to back up automatically. Make sure the “Google Images” box is checked.
- Choose if you want to sync Drive contents to your computer. When finished, click “Start”.
