Google Photos is an extremely flexible and feature-packed app for managing your photo collection. Like any cloud-connected photo app, it gives you access to your photos and albums from any device. In addition to the basics, however, it offers some really useful additions, such as automatically generated video clips to commemorate events and the ability to search for automatically-indexed content such as objects and specific people. And one of the newest features may prove to be the most useful yet – freeing up device storage.
For those who like to snap a lot of photos, device storage can often be a problem. Photos, particularly those taken at a high resolution, can quickly eat through a device’s available storage. While users have the option to delete photos from their devices that have already been backed up, doing this one-by-one can be a tedious and time-consuming task. Fortunately, Google has provided a solution to help with this. The “Free up device storage” option will scan your device to identify content that has already been backed up to Google’s servers, and will then delete only the local copies from your device, which quickly frees up space while ensuring that no photos are lost in the process. When backing up photos to Google Photos cloud storage, there are two options: original quality and high quality. Choosing original quality, as the name suggests, maintains the original quality of your photos regardless of their size, but only provides a limited amount of storage space. High quality, however, will maintain the original quality up to a maximum of 16 megapixels, and offers unlimited space. Since most smartphones aren’t capable of taking photos at a higher resolution than 16 megapixels anyway, the second option is ideal for those who take a lot of photos. Unlimited cloud storage, in combination with the ability to quickly free up device storage, means that you can take as many photos as you want and never have to worry about space. And even once they have been removed from the device, they are still accessible through the Google Photos app at any time. To use this feature, simply go to “Settings”, and then “Free up device storage”.
Smartphone cameras continue to improve in photo quality with each generation. While they may not yet be able to match the quality of high-end DLSR cameras, smartphones excel at convenience because they are devices that people carry with them everywhere. And now, the ability to take an unlimited number of photos makes it even easier to get those perfect shots without having to waste time deleting old photos individually. To download the Google Photos app and take advantage of this space-saving feature, check out the link below.
Because life shouldn’t stop when your phone storage does. #PhotosForLifehttps://t.co/yl3wz3EGnU
— Google Photos (@googlephotos) August 6, 2016