PCWorld – August 2019

114 PCWorld AUGUST 2019

HERE’S HOW BACK UP YOUR GOOGLE PHOTOS LIBR ARY

Photos folders in Google Drive will no

longer automatically appear in Google

Photos.

So keeping a rolling backup of your

photos is going to take some work. Here’s

what’s changing and what your options are

for creating a backup:

GOOGLE DRIVE

Storage

Like before, Google will store high-quality

photos and videos in Photos for free, so

they won’t affect the space in your Google

Drive. If you opt for Original Quality,

however, Google Photos will use some of

the space in your Google Drive to store

your library, even though you won’t be able

to see or access the photos. Any photo or

video that resides in both places will take up

twice the space.

Photos folder

If you previously opted to use Google Drive

to back up your Google Photos, you won’t

be able to do that anymore. Any photos that

were synced until the minute Google turned

off the functionality will remain in your folder.

You can do whatever you’d like with them,

but photos deleted from Google Drive will

no longer be removed from Photos.

UPLOAD FROM DRIVE

Google has added a new feature to Google

Photos called Upload From Drive. Similar to

the Upload button and the drag-and-drop

method, it will let you select photos and

videos directly from your

Google Drive and import

them into Photos. Once

something is uploaded to

Google Photos, it will live

in two places and take up

twice the storage. And if

you delete a photo from

one place, the other will

remain.

BACKUP AND

SYNC

For years, Google has

offered a Backup And

Sync app (go.pcworld.

The photos in your Google Photos folder in Google Drive won’t be

deleted, but new ones won’t be added anymore.