iPhone Will Google Photos mess with Apple Photos? (see below)

[brinkeguthrie]

So, iPhone works great with iCloud Photos, no problem. (I also happen to have my photo library on Google Photos as well. I just manually add them on my MBP desktop. So would the Google Photos app interfere with the uploading to iCloud? You know, dual syncing. Or something.) I'm not sure if I am being clear, sorry.

 

[BigMcGuire]

A questions: Do you have optimized photos turned on or do you download originals? (Google will want all the photos locally).


I used Google Photos with iCloud Photos together on my iPhone for many years up till very recently. My wife still does today. Google Photos and iCloud Photos play nicely together. I actually used Google Photos as a backup to iCloud Photos.

My observations - due to how aggressively iOS locks down apps in the background, I had to intentionally open Google Photos on my phone now and then for it to finish backing up photos I took (didn't take long).


Google will upload a copy of the photos to Google Photos and treat them completely separately (allowing you to "save space" and delete photos locally if you really wanted to but keep them in Google Photos cloud).

Apple will upload your photos to iCloud Photos but treat them like one - if you delete on your phone, it'll delete it in iCloud instantly.

Never had a problem with the two interfering with each other on upload. Google prefers wifi to upload photos.

 

[brinkeguthrie]

I have optimized on. But here's the thing, if I put GPhotos on there, is it gonna try and upload all the photos on my phone? 'Cause they're already ON Google photos. I just went thru Apple Photos and deleted all the dupes, I had a ton of 'em. HDR and regular or..something. I just want a regular, plain ol JPEG. I'm not intent on publishing to a news website or something. Am I making sense?

 

[BigMcGuire]

I have optimized on. But here's the thing, if I put GPhotos on there, is it gonna try and upload all the photos on my phone? 'Cause they're already ON Google photos. I just went thru Apple Photos and deleted all the dupes, I had a ton of 'em. HDR and regular or..something. I just want a regular, plain ol JPEG. I'm not intent on publishing to a news website or something. Am I making sense?

Yeah that's why I asked... See, I have originals turned on, on my iPhone, and I have 56k+ photos and videos.

And yes.... Google Photos will try to upload every single one. It will compare it to what you have there already and it's pretty smart about not uploading if it's already there BUT it will try to process every single photo which makes me think it'll make your iPhone download each and every photo then try to upload it if you have optimized photos turned on.

Both my wife and I have originals downloaded to our phones so I really can't speak from experience in that department. Maybe it's smart enough to compare the EXIF data and not have to have iCloud download every single photo?


I had to reset my iPhone fairly recently and I've held off reinstalling Google Photos because it needs several hours plugged in to compare all my 56k+ photos/videos to what's there already and then just upload the new ones.

 

[brinkeguthrie]

I think this answers my question. My GPhoto albums and iCloud Photo albums are -perfectly- arranged. The phone zips up the pix to iCloud, and I manually do them to Google. I don't wanna have an album titled "San Francisco Nov 22" go from 57 photos to 114.

I turned off the HDR feature on the phone which I didn't even know of- why would anyone want two photos of each. And this: "compare all my 56k+ photos/videos to what's there already and then just upload the new ones" just sounds WAY to risky and potentially disaster laden.

 

[BigMcGuire]

I think this answers my question. My GPhoto albums and iCloud Photo albums are -perfectly- arranged. The phone zips up the pix to iCloud, and I manually do them to Google. I don't wanna have an album titled "San Francisco Nov 22" go from 57 photos to 114.

I turned off the HDR feature on the phone which I didn't even know of- why would anyone want two photos of each.

Good luck.

2019 I went from Google Photos to iCloud (a painful process) but kept the two synced via my iPhone via the two apps. Every time I got a new iPhone I had to install Google Photos and it would sit there for hours comparing and not duplicating - but taking hours to catch up.

So much easier to share to family/friends in Google Photos....

But yeah, now that Google charges for photo storage, I'm considering just going 100% iCloud (one less bill to pay, albeit a tiny bill ($30/year)).

These apps like to do things their way and it's really easy to mess it up.

 

[BigMcGuire]

Google has definitely been optimizing things. Just installed Google Photos and it took maybe 10 mins and it was all synced up. Phone barely got warm. Massive improvement over the last time I did that. Granted, everything was synced a few weeks ago before I reset my phone. Heh. Cool.

 

[tekfranz]

One issue with Google Photos and iCloud Photos is that when Google Photos prompts you to free up space it will delete any iCloud Photos Google has “Safely Backed Up”.

I use both but I don’t use the Free Up Space feature unless I first turn off iCloud Photos and let iCloud sync changes.

 

[BigMcGuire]

One issue with Google Photos and iCloud Photos is that when Google Photos prompts you to free up space it will delete any iCloud Photos Google has “Safely Backed Up”.

I use both but I don’t use the Free Up Space feature unless I first turn off iCloud Photos and let iCloud sync changes.

Agreed, if you're going to be using both, definitely do not free up space in Google Photos heh. Deleting in iCloud deletes everywhere in iCloud. Good point!

 

[dwellselectric]

I use both and haven’t had any issues ever.