How To Upload Pictures From Mac To Google Photos
With all the cloud services available, you don’t need to store your photos locally on your Mac. This memory space can be used for other elements. Services like Google Photos allow you to upload and store unlimited photos and videos in the cloud as long as you meet their quality requirements.
Google Photos offers several ways to sync photos from your Mac to the service. You can either let it download all of your Mac photos or choose the ones you want to download. Plus, you have a web version that you can use if you don’t want to install another app on your Mac.
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Upload all Mac photos to Google Photos using “Backup and Sync”
Google offers an app called Backup & Sync that lets you upload files from your computers to your Google account. You can use it to download all the photos that are in the iPhoto and Photos apps on your Mac. It also lets you choose your own photo upload folders.
To take advantage of unlimited free storage on Google Photos, you need to allow Google:
- to compress your photos to 16MP.
- Resize your videos to a maximum resolution of 1080p.
You don’t need to manually resize or compress the content as Google will do it for you.
- Download and run the Backup & Sync app on your Mac.
- Enter your Google username and click Next.
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- Enter your Google account password and click Sign In.
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- If you have two-factor authentication enabled, enter the code on the screen and click Done.
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- The app will now let you choose what you want to upload to Google Photos Check the box for the Pictures folder, and then check the boxes for both Photo Library and iPhoto Library.
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- Select High Quality (Free Unlimited Storage).
- Select the Upload photos and videos to Google Photos check box.
- Finally, click Next at the bottom.
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Upload Mac photos using the Google Photos web version
If you only have a few photos to upload to Google Photos and don’t want to install an app for that, you can use the web version of Google Photos to do this. This will allow you to create albums and upload your photos to them – all from your web browser.
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- Open a new tab in your browser. and go to the Google Photos website. Sign in with your Google account if you are not already signed in.
- Click on the option labeled “Create†at the top and select “Albumâ€. This is where your uploaded photos will be stored.
- Enter a name for your new album and click “Add Photos” to add photos to it.
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- A screen will open where you can add existing Google Photos photos to your album. Since you want to download photos locally from your Mac, click Select from Computer in the upper right corner of your screen.
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- Select the photos you want to upload from your Mac to Google Photos
- If you want to add photos later, you can return to the new album at any time and click on the Add Photos option to upload new photos to your account.
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Upload selected photos from iPhoto to Google Photos
If you use the Backup & Sync app to download photos, you’ll find that it only allows you to download complete iPhoto libraries to your account. You cannot manually select photos from the library to upload.
Fortunately, there is a workaround to do this.
- Right-click on the Mac desktop and select New Folder. Use iPhoto Photos as the name of your folder.
- Start iPhoto in the preferred way on your Mac.
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- Select the photos you want to upload to Google Photos You can select multiple photos from any albums.
- When you have selected the photos to upload, click the File menu at the top and select Export.
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- If you want to adjust any quality-related parameters, do so on the next screen. Then click Export to export the photos from iPhoto.
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- Select the iPhoto Photos folder on your desktop and click OK.
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- Close iPhoto on Mac by clicking iPhoto, then at the top of the screen, click Quit iPhoto.
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- Launch the Backup & Sync app and sign in to your Google account.
- On the screen where he asks what content you want to download, uncheck all the boxes and click Select Folder.
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- Select the iPhoto Photos folder on your desktop.
- Click Next and your selected iPhoto photos will be uploaded to your Google Photos account.
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Upload selected photos from Photos app to Google Photos
If the Photos app is your primary photo management app, you can selectively upload your photos from that app to Google Photos You will need to use a workaround to do this, as the Backup & Sync app doesn’t allow this by default.
- Create a new folder on your desktop by right-clicking and choosing New Folder. Use “My Photos” as the name for your folder.
- Open the Photos app on your Mac.
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- Select the photos you want to download by clicking on them. You can select as many photos as you like in your albums.
- Once you’ve made your selection, click the File menu at the top and select Export, then Export Unmodified Original For Photos X, where X is the number of photos you selected.
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- If you don’t want to change the names of the photos, click Export to save them with the default names in a folder on your desktop.
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- Select the My Photos folder on your desktop and click Export Originals.
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- Close Photos on your Mac.
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- Open the Backup & Sync app and sign in to your account.
- Click on the “Select Folder” option and select the “My Photos” folder on your desktop.
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- Proceed with the upload process and your selected photos will be uploaded to your account.
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Do you store your photos locally on your Mac? If so, what’s stopping you from uploading them to services like Google Photos? We would be interested to find out in the comments below.
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