Hi. I have a lot of photos (and videos) that are on Google Photos. It used to be that when a took a picture with my phone, it saved to a folder on my microSD card (msd) and then was automatically backed up to Google Photos. I then ran out of space on my msd and the photos (and videos) got out of sync. Now all new photos and videos are saved to the phone and not the msd. I reformatted the msd and I want to know how I can't set up sync between the msd and Google Photos. Currently, most of my photos are ONLY in Google Photos and I have a few photos on a folder in the phone that ARE automatically backed up to Google Photos. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
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How to sync Google Photos
- Thread starter startrek
- Start date
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- Tags
- samsung galaxy s3
svim
Extreme Android User
So it sounds like when you reformatted your microSD card that 'broke' the sync function between your phone's Google Photos app and your online Google account (where your photo library is stored). Going by what you described at least your photo library is more or less intact, with your previous photos still safe online but not on your phone, and more recent photos residing both on your phone and online.
So the first thing you must do is go to https://photos.google.com and confirm all your photos are there. If you already did this previously, double-check, don't assume anything, and make sure everything is copied into your online Google Photos collection even if you have to manually copy photos into it. You need to have all your photos in a single location at some point. Once done, you should make a manual backup of your photo library, go to Google Takeout (this will be easier on a computer browser) and make a backup of your photos:
https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout
Save the resulting file in a safe place.
-- On your S3, with your photo library residing in your online Google account and in the manual backup file you just made, for a clean start go ahead and delete those photos that are currently residing in your phone's internal storage. At this point all your photos are residing online in your Google account, none on your phone.
-- Go to your Settings >> More >> Application manager and find the Google Photos app. Click on the 'Force stop' button and click on the 'Clear data' button. This will wipe its cache and all the Settings you made, essentially this returns the Google Photos app back to when you originally installed it. Don't start the Google Photos apps up yet though.
-- You now want to start up your Camera app, go the big gear icon in its upper left and scroll down to the 'Storage' option to choose whether you want the default storage area for your photos to be 'Device' (your S3's internal storage) or 'Memory card' (your microSD card).
-- Now go ahead and start up the Google Photos app. Since you previously cleared its settings and configurations it will be starting up the same way as when it was first installed. Be sure to go into its Settings and change things to how you want them, especially the 'Backup and sync' options. At this point both the Camera app and Google Photos app are using the same default DCIM folder again, the one that you selected in the Camera app's Settings.
-- If Google Photos doesn't start downloading your photo library into your S3 automatically (which can take quite a while depending on how many photos you've accumulated and the bandwidth speed of your online connection), you'll need to restore your photo library manually using the backup you made using Google Takeout (open the archive file and copy all the photos into your phone's DCIM folder).
So the first thing you must do is go to https://photos.google.com and confirm all your photos are there. If you already did this previously, double-check, don't assume anything, and make sure everything is copied into your online Google Photos collection even if you have to manually copy photos into it. You need to have all your photos in a single location at some point. Once done, you should make a manual backup of your photo library, go to Google Takeout (this will be easier on a computer browser) and make a backup of your photos:
https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout
Save the resulting file in a safe place.
-- On your S3, with your photo library residing in your online Google account and in the manual backup file you just made, for a clean start go ahead and delete those photos that are currently residing in your phone's internal storage. At this point all your photos are residing online in your Google account, none on your phone.
-- Go to your Settings >> More >> Application manager and find the Google Photos app. Click on the 'Force stop' button and click on the 'Clear data' button. This will wipe its cache and all the Settings you made, essentially this returns the Google Photos app back to when you originally installed it. Don't start the Google Photos apps up yet though.
-- You now want to start up your Camera app, go the big gear icon in its upper left and scroll down to the 'Storage' option to choose whether you want the default storage area for your photos to be 'Device' (your S3's internal storage) or 'Memory card' (your microSD card).
-- Now go ahead and start up the Google Photos app. Since you previously cleared its settings and configurations it will be starting up the same way as when it was first installed. Be sure to go into its Settings and change things to how you want them, especially the 'Backup and sync' options. At this point both the Camera app and Google Photos app are using the same default DCIM folder again, the one that you selected in the Camera app's Settings.
-- If Google Photos doesn't start downloading your photo library into your S3 automatically (which can take quite a while depending on how many photos you've accumulated and the bandwidth speed of your online connection), you'll need to restore your photo library manually using the backup you made using Google Takeout (open the archive file and copy all the photos into your phone's DCIM folder).
Thanks. I'll try this out later today.
Hi. I went through this whole procedure and the photos did NOT download on the S3 sd card automatically. Is there a simple way to restore all the photos and videos to the sd card on the s3? Thanks again.
svim
Extreme Android User
Remove the microSD card from your S3 and using an adapter put the card into your computer. Open the Takeout archive file and copy your photos into the DCIM folder on the card. When you put your card back into your phone the Google Photos app will want to index all the content you just added. Hopefully since it's the exact same as what's already in your online Google Photos account it won't be duplicating everything.
Hey. Thanks for all your help. Ulitmately, this didn't quite work. Everything that I put on the SD card DID sync with Google Photos, but it doubled up everything. In other words, the photos on the SD card were all shown in Google Photos and the ones that had already been synced with Google Photos in the past (almost all of them) were show again. I just deleted the ones on the SD card and set up Google Photos to backup to Google Drive. I guess that's the way software is these days. There are very few options and users have very little control. Software is made in such a way that people don't have to think or learn anything at all. Oh well. At some point, I will look for a better photo/sync solution. Something better than the Google setup . Not sure if it exists.
svim
Extreme Android User
There are plenty of other options you might want to look into:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_image-sharing_websites
And that list refers to just services that target photos, there are a number of file sharing/backup services like Dropbox and OneDrive that also include photo specific options.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_image-sharing_websites
And that list refers to just services that target photos, there are a number of file sharing/backup services like Dropbox and OneDrive that also include photo specific options.