What does everyone use for photo backup on Android?

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Blackhawk
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What does everyone use for photo backup on Android?

Post by Blackhawk »

Finding something has been way, way more of a hassle than it should be. Google Photos is most people's go-to, but I've grown to despise it. Google wants to replace your entire camera and photo experience with their own. Instead of just backing up my photos, it takes control of every single photo and every album. If I am out and take photos, then want to back them up and delete them locally, Google can't do it (delete photos on your phone and Google deletes them from the site as well.) And if I download my photos from Google to sort locally, then delete them from Google Photos, Google also deletes them from my phone, not letting me save any locally without also having them in the online album.

I just want a straightforward backup. I take a picture. Picture is automatically uploaded to [server] without being altered. I can then remove the photo from my phone and still get it from the backup later. I can also empty out the backup without deleting my personal albums located on my phone. It's so simple! Dropbox used to do it before they decided they didn't want non-commercial customers and instituted extreme restrictions. Other places I've looked at either do what Google does, or they alter the photos (generally reducing the quality.)
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Anonymous Bosch
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Re: What does everyone use for photo backup on Android?

Post by Anonymous Bosch »

If you have an Amazon Prime account, it may be worth investigating how to back up all of your photos with Amazon’s Prime Photos service (which is included with Amazon Prime and provides unlimited photo storage for all of your computers and mobile devices).
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Re: What does everyone use for photo backup on Android?

Post by hitbyambulance »

"free" or paid service?

or would you like to learn how to set up your own online backup?
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Re: What does everyone use for photo backup on Android?

Post by Blackhawk »

Oh, I'm very much the 'free' type. Discounting Amazon, which is effectively free (I pay Prime for the shipping, and the rest is just bonuses.)
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Re: What does everyone use for photo backup on Android?

Post by hitbyambulance »

the options for free online backup services are declining - they don't have as much incentive to try to lure users in with free offerings anymore, as more people are going this route. Microsoft's OneDrive is the most storage for free, but i think you'd be happier with your own self-hosted service. OwnCloud is just one example:

https://lifehacker.com/how-to-set-up-yo ... in-5993596

an example of an image hosting version (Google Photos clone):

https://github.com/hooram/ownphotos
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Re: What does everyone use for photo backup on Android?

Post by Kraken »

I just download them to my PC every 6 months or so.
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Re: What does everyone use for photo backup on Android?

Post by Blackhawk »

I'm going to try out Amazon for now. Since I'm a Prime subscriber anyway, it isn't a huge deal to give it a trial run. I remember that I tried it four or five years ago and went elsewhere, but I don't recall why. I'm guessing they changed whatever it was, though, because I haven't found anything annoying yet.
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Re: What does everyone use for photo backup on Android?

Post by naednek »

I download them to a portable hard drive. Then use Idrive to backup that folder.
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Re: What does everyone use for photo backup on Android?

Post by Kasey Chang »

Most of my photos are worthless, as I took them for work or other uses. I don't take selfies.
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Re: What does everyone use for photo backup on Android?

Post by Jeff V »

I've had to turn off the sync with Google since I was running out of my free space (like 17 GB) and it was getting hard to do anything. Many times I went through the phone, deleted garbage or redundant photos only to have them re-sync and put me back out of space. Out of thousands of photos I have, only a handful do I ever go back to look at.
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Re: What does everyone use for photo backup on Android?

Post by gilraen »

I literally can't figure out Google Photos...it backed up photos that I didn't need saving, and it took me several tries to try and actually delete them from the cloud (and I'm still not sure that I have).
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Re: What does everyone use for photo backup on Android?

Post by LawBeefaroni »

Blackhawk wrote: Sun Nov 29, 2020 3:27 pm If I am out and take photos, then want to back them up and delete them locally, Google can't do it (delete photos on your phone and Google deletes them from the site as well.)
You can select the option to delete local only in context menu.

Blackhawk wrote: Sun Nov 29, 2020 3:27 pm And if I download my photos from Google to sort locally, then delete them from Google Photos, Google also deletes them from my phone, not letting me save any locally without also having them in the online album.
Turn off synching and it won't do that.
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Re: What does everyone use for photo backup on Android?

Post by Blackhawk »

LawBeefaroni wrote: Mon Nov 30, 2020 11:43 pm
Blackhawk wrote: Sun Nov 29, 2020 3:27 pm If I am out and take photos, then want to back them up and delete them locally, Google can't do it (delete photos on your phone and Google deletes them from the site as well.)
You can select the option to delete local only in context menu.

Blackhawk wrote: Sun Nov 29, 2020 3:27 pm And if I download my photos from Google to sort locally, then delete them from Google Photos, Google also deletes them from my phone, not letting me save any locally without also having them in the online album.
Turn off synching and it won't do that.
The first I could not find, and searches online suggested it was impossible. The latter, I believe, also turns off automatic backup.
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Re: What does everyone use for photo backup on Android?

Post by LawBeefaroni »

Blackhawk wrote: Tue Dec 01, 2020 8:19 am
LawBeefaroni wrote: Mon Nov 30, 2020 11:43 pm
Blackhawk wrote: Sun Nov 29, 2020 3:27 pm If I am out and take photos, then want to back them up and delete them locally, Google can't do it (delete photos on your phone and Google deletes them from the site as well.)
You can select the option to delete local only in context menu.

Blackhawk wrote: Sun Nov 29, 2020 3:27 pm And if I download my photos from Google to sort locally, then delete them from Google Photos, Google also deletes them from my phone, not letting me save any locally without also having them in the online album.
Turn off synching and it won't do that.
The first I could not find, and searches online suggested it was impossible. The latter, I believe, also turns off automatic backup.
For the first, just select a photo or multiple photos and tap the 3-dot icon. You should get a "delete from device" option.

For the latter, just turn off synching ("backup and synch") in your download folder, or whatever folder you put the downloaded photo. I only have two folders synched, camera and photos. Everything else is off.
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Re: What does everyone use for photo backup on Android?

Post by Blackhawk »

I did exactly that (turned it off in certain folders.) I then went and downloaded my photos from the website and deleted them all. It deleted everything on my phone, including those in the folders I'd turned off. On top of that, there were two folders that didn't have the option.

It's why I finally gave up on Google Photos. It does way more than what I want a photo backup app to do, and doesn't like letting you choose for it to do less.
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