Why do have or need four photo apps?

[Rip]

I back up all my photos to the Verizon Cloud so which of the following apps can I delete from my MotoX?
1. Photos
2. Dropbox
3. Gallery
4. Carousel

 

[sydneycooper1979]

You can delete Photos, Dropbox, and Carousel. Gallery is your phone's built in image gallery, so I would leave this. The other three are not system apps.

 

[eidian]

PHOTO is a good app. My wife's '13 Moto X is only 16 gigs and the free cloud storage saves space. And it makes transferring pics to the our external hard drive easier at home because all we have to do is sign in to our Google accounts on the computer and open the Photo app to save our pics--no connecting the phone to the PC with a cable.

(edit: had the wrong app in my original post--corrected it)

 

[Rip]

So if I delete the Google Photo app, I can log in to my Google account on my laptop and open the Photo app and I'll be able to save the pictures from my phone's Gallery app to the Google Photo app on my laptop?

Gallery is a good app. My wife's '13 Moto X is only 16 gigs and the free cloud storage saves space. And it makes transferring pics to the our external hard drive easier at home because all we have to do is sign in to our Google accounts on the computer and open the Photo app to save our pics--no connecting the phone to the PC with a cable.

 

[eidian]

So if I delete the Google Photo app, I can log in to my Google account on my laptop and open the Photo app and I'll be able to save the pictures from my phone's Gallery app to the Google Photo app on my laptop?

Oh crap! I'm sorry, I meant the PHOTO app! The Photo app--NOT Gallery. Do NOT delete Gallery (that could cause problems later)!

The Photo app is by Google so it's linked to your Google account. You have to have Photo on your phone to access your pics from your laptop.

Make sure that you go into settings on your phone and have Photo backup to the cloud immediately after you take pics (you can choose different intervals).

After that, when you start to run out of storage space, Photo will ask if you want to delete pictures older than 30 days FROM YOUR PHONE to save storage space; this will delete the pics from internal phone memory but keep them in the cloud. You have to be careful to remember that if you delete pics while you're in the Photo app, you will delete the file from BOTH the phone and the cloud (you might be able to change that in settings but I'm not sure). If you want to keep the pics in the cloud, use Gallery to delete pics from the phone only (Photo affects BOTH the cloud and the internal memory, Gallery only affects the phone memory).

It's a little confusing at first (and I didn't help with the mistake in my first post) but it's really worth learning.

I'm going to correct my first post.

 

[eidian]

Here's a screen capture from Assistant in Photos asking of I want to delete old photos.

 

[Rip]

Thank you for the detailed explanation. I really appreciate it.

 

[M_Sweeney]

Thank you for the detailed explanation. I really appreciate it.

I would use Google photo, Onedrive, or dropbox to back up photos. Only using Verizon is a good way to lose your photos if you change service. Its never a good idea to lock in personal items with a carrier or a cable provider (email, photos, etc).

Using Google or Microsoft, it doesn't matter what phone, platform, etc you use. All your photos are backed up, and can be downloaded on any phone, pc, or laptop.

Plus carriers, like VZ, only give limited space and then either stop backing up new photos or charge you additional fees for more space.

Its best to just use carriers and cable providers for basic services (phone, Internet access, tv) but use Google, Microsoft, etc for email, photo/document Backups, etc. That way you never lose access and aren't locked in with that one carrier.

 

[Rip]

I appreciate your suggestion. It makes a LOT of sense.
Rip

I would use Google photo, Onedrive, or dropbox to back up photos. Only using Verizon is a good way to lose your photos if you change service. Its never a good idea to lock in personal items with a carrier or a cable provider (email, photos, etc).

Using Google or Microsoft, it doesn't matter what phone, platform, etc you use. All your photos are backed up, and can be downloaded on any phone, pc, or laptop.

Plus carriers, like VZ, only give limited space and then either stop backing up new photos or charge you additional fees for more space.

Its best to just use carriers and cable providers for basic services (phone, Internet access, tv) but use Google, Microsoft, etc for email, photo/document Backups, etc. That way you never lose access and aren't locked in with that one carrier.

 

[M_Sweeney]

I appreciate your suggestion. It makes a LOT of sense.
Rip

I had to learn the hard way several years back. I had my email through my cable provider, and was using Verizon to back up photos, etc.

Well, they changed their photo service and I never got a notification (was sent to an old email I believe) so all my photos, going back nearly a decade, were all deleted.

They also try to lock you in, so it's hard to transfer over to another service. When I moved and needed to change to a new cable provider and I was also changing my phone services, they delete your email address,etc.

So it was a pain needing to download all my contacts, notify everyone of my new email, etc.

I also started using Google Contacts instead of a carrier (or OEM) based contact backup. That way my contacts (email and phone #) aren't locked into a single carrier or phone maker, where they either get deleted or is a pain to transfer if I ever change phones or services.

Google Contacts just loads on whatever phone or services im using. And can be synced to PC.

It's all 3rd party (large company) services for me now. I use nothing provided by a carrier, cable operator, or phone OEM.