How to Download All Your Media From Google Photos
Cloud storage has changed the way we take care of our data. Previously, you had to back up and transfer files between devices directly, otherwise you wouldn’t have them in multiple places. For example, if you’ve been taking photos on your iPhone or Android, you’ll often need to connect it to your computer to make sure those photos are saved and easily accessible for sharing with friends, family, and the internet in general.
The problem is that we have changed the way we deal with data these days. If you connect your smartphone to your computer and expect to transfer all the photos and videos you see in your photo app of choice, you may be surprised to find that only a portion of the images actually make it to your computer. This is confusing given that media is available on the phone: why would transfer be easy?
Google Photos makes it difficult to understand what images are stored on the device.
This is exactly what happened to Reddit user Spax123 , who took to the Google Pixel subreddit to address the issue. This user tried to transfer his late wife’s Google Photos library to her Pixel on his computer, but his computer only contained photos and videos from about the last six months. There were four and a half years worth of images on her phone that were apparently locked on her phone and didn’t even show up when he looked at her Google Drive account.
However, this story has a happy ending. Redditor Deggendorf correctly surmised that the rest of the photos and videos in the library were saved to the cloud: the Pixel itself actually only saved a recent snapshot of the photos, with the rest shown as previews from the cloud. Google doesn’t make it clear what’s going on here, which easily leads to confusion: if you see all your photos in one place, you naturally assume they’re, well, all in one place.
Cloud storage services worth considering:
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Internxt Cloud Storage: Lifetime Subscription for 2TB Plan $149.50
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10TB IDrive – $4.98.
How to Download Google Photos Images from the Cloud
Solution? Simply log into the Google Photos web app . Here you can access your entire Google Photos library and choose to download any images to another location, such as your computer.
If you’re only interested in a few specific images to transfer, it’s easy to download them to your device. You can select the image you want, click the “More” button with three dots, then select “Download” . This will transfer the image from the cloud to your phone, allowing you to transfer it when you connect your phone to your computer.