Photo Backup Options

[Barry Adler]

For an upcoming trip, I plan to use my Droid Maxx for photo backup by using a USB OTG adapter to transfer JPEG images from my camera's SD card to a folder on the phone's SD card. In testing the workflow, this has worked well.

The issue I'm having is with my attempt to do an additional, cloud backup of the images from the phone's SD card when the phone is connected to Wifi. It is easy to select the images within the folder on the phone's SD card and select "Share" then to select Picasa or GDrive as the destination of the share and either works. The problem is that using either of these options, the cloud upload is at full resolution, which is great, of course, so long as I have a fast Wifi connection. But I imagine that I will be in some places with a slow connection where I'll want to upload a lower resolution version just so all is not lost if, say, my bags are stolen.

Within a Desktop version of Picasa, choosing the upload resolution is simple as a menu appears by default. But from my Droid, I can't see any options to alter the upload resolution. Any advice or Apps folks know about would be welcome. Thanks in advance.

 

[doogald]

The Google photos app let's you automatically upload on wifi only and by default will do less than full-resolution (though still high res). It's basically the replacement for Picasa.

https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...com.google.android.apps.photos&token=rnRRE8_U

 

[Barry Adler]

The Google photos app let's you automatically upload on wifi only and by default will do less than full-resolution (though still high res). It's basically the replacement for Picasa.

https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...com.google.android.apps.photos&token=lPhapmnq

Thanks, I have Google Photo App (native on the phone, I think) but as I understand that app it automatically uploads photos taken by the phone, which is not what I need. My issue is how to upload photos transferred to the phone.

 

[doogald]

Yep, it does that. Open the Google Photos app. Tap the menu/hamburger control top left, tap settings, tap backup & sync, and it allows you to choose which folders on the device to backup, the quality (high or original), over WiFi only or over both WiFi and mobile data, etc. But, in that settings, there is a big "Choose folders to backup...". So, transfer the photos to a folder on the phone, and Google Photos will upload them over WiFi (if you choose).

Follow the Play Store link above. I can't recall if the Google Photos app (which was really a part of the Google+ app) will automatically update or if you need to install that, but just go ahead and install it from the Play Store. If it doesn't work for you, you can always uninstall it.

 

[Barry Adler]

Yep, it does that. Open the Google Photos app. Tap the menu/hamburger control top left, tap settings, tap backup & sync, and it allows you to choose which folders on the device to backup, the quality (high or original), over WiFi only or over both WiFi and mobile data, etc. But, in that settings, there is a big "Choose folders to backup...". So, transfer the photos to a folder on the phone, and Google Photos will upload them over WiFi (if you choose).

Follow the Play Store link above. I can't recall if the Google Photos app (which was really a part of the Google+ app) will automatically update or if you need to install that, but just go ahead and install it from the Play Store. If it doesn't work for you, you can always uninstall it.

I'll give this a try. Thanks.

 

[Barry Adler]

Yep, it does that. Open the Google Photos app. Tap the menu/hamburger control top left, tap settings, tap backup & sync, and it allows you to choose which folders on the device to backup, the quality (high or original), over WiFi only or over both WiFi and mobile data, etc. But, in that settings, there is a big "Choose folders to backup...". So, transfer the photos to a folder on the phone, and Google Photos will upload them over WiFi (if you choose).

So, it seems as if this should work, and I thought it would, but it doesn't, at least not best I can tell. Here's why:

When choosing folders to back up the only options are folders in the Pictures folder, for example, "Photoshop Express." Using a file manager, it is possible to add a folder to the Pictures folder, and sure enough, the added folder appears as an option to choose under Google Photos, but files dragged into that folder are not uploaded. Only images organically created by software that uses the Pictures folder, such as "Photoshop Express" triggers Google Photos to backup; seems it's just not designed for what I'm trying to do. If I'm wrong, I'd be happy to hear it, and thanks again.

 

[doogald]

I just created a folder called "test photos" on my phone. I then copied a photo into that folder. As soon as I did, I got a notification from the Google photos app that it had noticed a new folder with photos and wanted to know if I wanted to back it up.

And, I checked Google photos online - the image was backed up.

 

[doogald]

Actually, if you open the hamburger icon and choose "device folders" it shows a list of all folders on storage with an image and there is a control above and to the right of each to toggle backing up that folder.

 

[Barry Adler]

I just created a folder called "test photos" on my phone. I then copied a photo into that folder. As soon as I did, I got a notification from the Google photos app that it had noticed a new folder with photos and wanted to know if I wanted to back it up.

And, I checked Google photos online - the image was backed up.

Strange. I got the same notification and thought I had the problem solved, but when I dragged a photo in it did not get backed up (even though the conditions for backup were met and worked for new photos taken by the camera). I wonder if my problem was that I dragged an image from an internal folder and so backup somehow didn't see the new file. I'll try an external one, which is what I'll be doing on the road anyway. Thanks.

 

[Barry Adler]

Actually, if you open the hamburger icon and choose "device folders" it shows a list of all folders on storage with an image and there is a control above and to the right of each to toggle backing up that folder.

Thanks. If I can get dragged files to backup I'll try this too.

 

[doogald]

I decided to try this one more time, this time with a new photo. I took a photo on a standalone camera. I copied the new folder to my Maxx's storage (using the app Portal to do so over WiFi, as I can't find my OTG cable.) When the file copied over, I received the Google Photos notification asking if I wanted to back up the new folder.

When I went to my computer and opened Google Photos, the photo was there. The only device it was connected to that was backing up to Google Photos was the Maxx (my computer was set up to backup, but I turned it off before I connected the SD card from the camera.)

I hope it works for you as it did for me...

 

[Barry Adler]

I decided to try this one more time, this time with a new photo. I took a photo on a standalone camera. I copied the new folder to my Maxx's storage (using the app Portal to do so over WiFi, as I can't find my OTG cable.) When the file copied over, I received the Google Photos notification asking if I wanted to back up the new folder.
I hope it works for you as it did for me...

Thanks for all your help. After some fiddling, I have a workaround that works fine for me. Still need to have the backup folder in Pictures parent folder, but that's not a problem. Even then, I can't generate an option to have Google Photo auto-backup a folder until the folder has a JPEG image in it, and that image is not itself backed up, though subsequent images are backed up. And, oddly, dragging a new folder with JPEGs onto the Pictures folder does generate a prompt to autobackup that folder, but the images themselves are not backed up even if I select "Yes."

So the workaround is to create a subfolder in the Pictures folder, then seed that subfolder with a JPEG that I don't need backed up, then go to Google Photo and select the subfolder as one to be auto backed up. After that, any new JPEG dragged to that folder is automatically backed up to the cloud under any settings I'd like (full or reduced resolution, only when connected to WiFi, etc.) Needlessly cumbersome, it seems to me, and not sure why it works differently (and more easily) on your phone. But I can get done what I need now to backup travel folders without carrying a laptop on the trip. A plus. Thanks again.

 

[doogald]

You bet. Have a great trip.