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btownguy

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 18, 2009
545
19
Hi. I was wondering if anyone is using Google Photos as a backup to iCloud photo library. If so, and you have your iCloud photo library set to "optimize storage" on your iOS device, what gets uploaded to Google Photos? Would a thumbnail get uploaded?
 
Hi. I was wondering if anyone is using Google Photos as a backup to iCloud photo library. If so, and you have your iCloud photo library set to "optimize storage" on your iOS device, what gets uploaded to Google Photos? Would a thumbnail get uploaded?

Heavy user of iCloud Photo Library with an iCloud storage subscription here and also use Google Photos to back up photos (belt and braces).

As far as I can tell, Google Photos requires any given photo to be fully downloaded to your device before it can back it up. If the photo is already on your device at full size, no problem. if it isn’t, and it is in your iCloud Photo Library, Google Photos attempting to back it up will cause the photo to be downloaded to your device, and then Google Photos will back it up. Some time after that, ‘Optimize storage’ on your device will kick in and remove the full sized image and leave the full image in iCloud Photo Library. With a full or ‘downsized’ copy in Google Photos according to your GP settings and how much storage you have free on your Google account.
 
And every time you have to restore or reinstall the Google Photos app it is trying to do the same thing all over again even though those pics are already on Google Photos which makes my iPhone space run out. I have given up honestly
 
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