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Google+ Saved My Mom’s Photos

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After sending off for a replacement phone, my mom told me the only thing she lost were her smartphone photos, but thanks to Google+ she didn’t lose a thing.

When my mom picked the LG Lucid on Verizon for her first smartphone, one of the first things I did was make sure the Google+ app was installed and Instant Upload was turned on.

Instant Upload automatically uploads all the photos and videos taken with any Android phone to Google, where users can see them online and on a new phone.

Google Instant Upload Saves Photos

Google+ Instant Upload saves photos.

I didn’t think she would need to use the service this soon, but it was exciting to find that this simple tool saved her photos form summer vacation with my dad. The photos were sitting in her gallery, almost as if they never left.

Google+ for the iPhone also offers Instant Upload of Photos, but many users rely on PhotoStream for a similar task.

If this sounds familiar, it’s because Google created a commercial along the same line, though it featured a new dad and all the photos of his daughter. In this video, Google+ saves the day with instant photo uploads.

Because we are on a Verizon Share Everything plan with limited data, I set my mom’s phone to only upload over WiFi, which is frequent enough for most users. Google+ does offers Instant uploads over 4G LTE, which is a good option to turn on while on vacation.

How to turn on Instant Upload

Turning on Instant Upload on Android is a snap.

Download Google+ from the Google Play Store.

Open the app and sign in with your Google account.

Tap on Settings.

Turn on Instant Upload

Instant Upload automatically saves photos.

Scroll down to Instant Upload.

Check the box to turn it on.

The app offers control over uploading photos and video of WiFi or cellular.

The photos and videos are private unless a users chooses to share them, so there’s no need to worry about photos automatically sharing with Google+ or other users.

2 Comments

2 Comments

  1. Guthrie

    09/27/2012 at 4:50 am

    What’s the truly better option here, dropbox or google+? I have a dropbox account so size is no issue, but the photos are just messily collected, they’re just safe. I don’t really want to double up with a service I don’t use, but if there are other features, such as easy organization I’d be interested.

    I’m on a S3.

    • Josh Smith

      09/27/2012 at 6:10 am

      I went with Google+ because she already had a Google+ account. I think both services are nice, though Dropbox gets them to your computer directly. Google+ combines by date, and allows me to share specific photos. If you click on Photos in Gmail you can take a look at where they are stored.

      Here’s some more info. https://support.google.com/picasa/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=93773

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