Since its Inception, Google Photos has been my drug of choice when it comes to online backup and cloud storage. The ability to take a quick photo or video with my phone and instantly have it backed up to my Google account is priceless. Throw in a few cool features, like Auto-Awesome — recently changed to Assistant — and I’ve found no reason to look elsewhere for my digital photography and scrapbooking needs.
One thing that was missing, however, was a simplified solution for backing up photos to your account from your PC. Of course, you could always load up Google+ and manually upload them, but the process was somewhat tedious, to say the very least.
Now, that problem is solved thanks to Google releasing the first version of its Photos Auto-Uploader software for Windows computers. A simple download of a .exe file and a hassle-free installation is all that stands between you and the ability to sync your photos to Google Photos — and with the recent announcement at I/O that grants users unlimited storage of photos at 16MP and video at 1080P, as well the ability to save photos and videos at their original size, up to the amount of Drive Storage you have available in your account, there’s no reason to NOT take advantage of this awesome service.
Once you have the uploader installed, you can set the program to automatically upload photos from designated folders,or from devices and SD cards attached to your computer. You can also set the app to upload in high quality (free unlimited storage) or full resolution that counts against your quota. You can also set it to upload RAW files, which will eat up your storage even quicker, considering how much larger they are than your average .jpg or .png file.
From there, you’re all set to go. Start taking some pictures, add them to your computer, and let the work be done for you, courtesy of El Goog. Like magic, you’ll find your memories waiting for you at the Google Photo website and on any of your devices with the Photos app installed.
