How to upload photos from android phone to google photos

Google Photos is Google's AI-based default gallery app on the top Android phones, and it remains one of the best company products in recent years. It's packed with editing tools, a neat media organization, cloud backup, seamless sharing, and cross-platform availability. Whether you are looking for a beginner's guide or want to level up your Google Photos experience, we covered everything you need to know about Google's media storage service.

Google Photos works on most operating systems, including Android and iOS

The Google Photos app is available on iOS, iPad, and Android. Although not as feature-rich as the mobile apps, the service is available on the web too. Whether you use a Windows PC, a Mac, or a Chrome OS device, you can easily download images, upload media files, and access basic Google Photos app functions on the web. Simply head to the photos.google.com web version to find your uploaded photos and videos.

The Google Photos mobile app comes built-in on all Android phones, while iPhone users can download it from the Apple App Store.

Select upload size quality

The AI capabilities of Google Photos unlock when you upload your photos and videos to the company's servers. The service analyzes your uploaded files to show recommendations and improve your media collection.

To check the available options to upload media, follow these steps:

1. Open Google Photos.
2. Tap your profile picture.
3. Tap Photos settings.
4. Tap Backup & sync.
5. Tap Upload size.
6. Select an image quality for your photo uploads.

Original quality

Google used to offer unlimited storage for original-quality uploads to Pixel users. With Pixel 4, Google scrapped the lucrative add-on. The option backs up your photos and videos in full resolution. If you plan to shoot lots of photos in full resolution (48MP, 64MP, 108MP, or 200MP), use the Original quality option. It's also suitable for large prints without quality loss.

Storage saver

It's a nice balance between Original quality and the Express option. Storage saver stores more media files at a slightly reduced quality. It compresses photos to 16 megapixels and videos to a high quality to save storage space. The media uploads offer a respectable quality print up to 24-by-16-inches.

Express

If you're running low on Google Drive storage or dealing with a slow internet connection, select Express to back up media at the lowest resolution. Google Photos compresses videos to standard definition and images to 3MP to save photo storage. Express option is only available on an Android device. You won't find the same on Google Photos for iPhone.

Google Photos displays backup quality and file size for all your images and videos. Swipe up on any image and check the info under the Details menu.

All your Google Photos uploads count against the default 15GB cloud storage, which is shared with Gmail and Google productivity apps. You can check the free storage for your Google account from the Backup and sync menu. You can also manage and upgrade to one of the Google One plans to unlock more storage and image editing features. If you aren't sure of what Google One is, check out our dedicated tutorial to learn about the pricing and benefits.

Google Photos editing features

Google abandoned Snapseed (last updated on March 2020) and has slowly brought photo editing features to Google Photos. You can use AI recommendations, crop, portrait blur, magic eraser, color focus, adjust brightness, contrast, HDR, white point, shadows, and saturation, and apply built-in filters to keep your photos Instagram-ready. Check our best Google Photos editing tips and tricks to learn more.

Apart from image and video editing, you can also create collages, animations, and movies from the Library > Utilities menu.

In selected regions, Google allows you to create physical photo books. The pricing for softcover and hardcover books starts at $15 and $30, respectively. Check out our best tips to create photo books with Google Photos.

AI features in Google Photos

Once you upload your media library to Google Photos, the company's machine learning kicks in. You'll get ready-to-use collages, animation pics, and movie recommendations to save in Google Photos. The service detects similar photos (food, sky, forest, people) and often suggests collages and movies. The AI magic also works during image editing, which shows several features under the Suggestions tab to improve your photos.

Google Photos is smart enough to detect faces from your uploaded images. Once you assign a name to a person, use the search bar at the top and quickly pull images by typing the name.

Google Photos also comes with Google Lens integration to quickly find product info and visual matches on the web.

Sharing in Google Photos

With seamless sharing tools, Google Photos completely dethrones the best gallery apps on the Google Play Store. You can create shareable albums featuring the best photos, invite others for collaboration, start a conversation on an album with comments and likes, disable link sharing for privacy purposes, and be notified about every new activity in the shared album.

Navigate to Sharing > Create shared album, give it a title, manually add photos or select people & pets to create an auto-updating album, and share photos with friends and family.​​​​​​​

You can generate sharable links, start conversations with someone to exchange pictures seamlessly, and enable Partner Sharing. The latter is particularly useful to keep your gallery in sync with your loved one.

From Sharing > Share with partner, select your partner and choose what you want to share. Once your partner accepts the invitation, they can see all your selected photos in their Google Photos library and save selected ones to their library. Your partner can also choose to share their photos with you.

During a potluck or family gathering, you can stream Google Photo library to your smart TV and start a slideshow of recent vacation pictures.

You can use Google Photos Locked Folder to keep private photos and videos from prying eyes. Head to Google Photos Library > Utilities and set up Locked Folder under the Organize your library menu. However, the app won't back up your media files in Locked Folder, so you can't access the same on other devices. Google Photos deletes the content in Locked Folder if you uninstall the app. It's a local solution that works offline on your phone.

Google Photos is more than a standard gallery app

Once you set up Google Photos backup, sharing, and Locked Folder, check our best Google Photos tips and tricks to manage your images easily.