Help

How it works

Before you start

The app is designed to be as simple as possible - with everything setup from a single screen.

Before you start, you need the albums to be sorted into folders, ready to be found and uploaded by the app. You can then choose the folder that contains the albums you wish to upload/synchronise with Google Photos.

For example, if on your phone you have the following folders:

  • Pictures

    • Screenshots

      • Screenshot_20191008-002212.png

      • Screenshot_20190807-153632.png

      • Screenshot_20190304-082354.png

    • Office Lens

      • 2019_03_23 17:32.jpg

      • 2019_06_08 14:01.jpg

    • Downloaded

      • img_20190406.jpg

      • mov_20190603.avi

Then you can choose "Pictures", and the app will create three albums: "Screenshots", "Office Lens", and "Downloaded", along with the media items in each.

Note that the app is (currently) designed only to search for albums in the selected folder - any media items placed directly into the "Pictures" folder will NOT be uploaded.

Choose Folder

To find the folder containing the albums, just select "Choose Folder" (or "Change Folder") on the main screen. In the example above, you need to select the "Pictures" folder. This will bring up a popup allowing you to find the folder. On most devices, this will only allow you to search the main internal storage of the device. To search in an SD card or external hard drive, you can switch over to using the system folder selection method. Please see the detailed Help page for more detailed information about the two methods.

The app will periodically re-scan the selected folder to check for new (or removed) albums and media items.

Sign in to a Google Account

Choose "Sign In" to select a Google account to upload your media items to. You can choose any account you are already signed into, or sign in to a new account. When you select the account, you will be asked to provide read only permission to the app (if you haven't already done so). This will allow the app to search for albums and media items that were previously created by this app - this is used to help prevent duplication of albums and to verify quota allowances. Note that the sign in is only used by the app itself - we don't send any user-identifiable information to anyone other than Google. In particular, the media you upload is sent straight to Google and does not go through our own servers. See the Privacy Policy for more information.

To switch accounts, simply "Sign Out" from the main screen and start again.

Scanning

Once a folder and Google account is selected, the app will scan for any albums in the folder you selected, and will scan the Google Photos account of the user to see if any of the albums have already been created. When it's finished scanning it will list the albums that are found (it will not show folders which don't contain any media items, and indicate whether or not there are items to be uploaded. It will also show if there were any previous errors while uploading.

You can select each album found to check what media items were found, and see which ones are to be uploaded. It will also list any items which do not appear to be media items (which will not be uploaded). If there has been errors, some more information may be provided (if the app knows what the problem was).

If a recoverable error occurs during scanning - such as the internet being interrupted, or the folder you wish to scan was not available - you will be able to try the scan again.

Upload

Once the scans are complete, you will be able to start uploading. Just select upload and the app will start the process. The first time you start uploading with each account, the app will ask you for permission to write to your Google Photos account. This is required to allow the app to create new albums and media items. It does not allow the app to modify any existing items. Once the permission is granted, it will started uploading in the background so you can carry on with other things while it does it.

Note that in the case of errors, it will try each item a few times before giving up and moving on the next item.

You can cancel the upload from the app or from the notification bar. Once cancelled, you can carry on from where it stopped as soon as you're ready.

When complete, the app will show the status of each album. If all went well, all the albums will be uploaded and the media items created in them. If there's any errors, the albums will indicate this. You can try again and it will try those items again.

Note that the free version is limited to a number of albums per user, and a number of media items per album. See the Upload Quota page for more details. If you have reached this quota, you will need to purchase the pro version before you continue uploading.

Other Settings and Questions

Network Options

By default, the app will not upload items over mobile data or metered WiFi connections. You can change this in the settings. If the app detects a change to mobile data whilst uploading and this has not been enabled, it will cancel the upload immediately. You can then enable it and continue if you want to, or alternatively wait and continue once you are back on an un-metered connection.

Continuous Backup

When the app uploads new albums and items, it will remember which ones it has already done and generally not upload them again once successful.

  • If you delete media items from your device after uploading them, they will NOT be removed from Google Photos by the app.

  • If you delete media items from Google Photos after uploading them, the will not be removed from your device, and they will generally not be uploaded again.

    • If you change albums, or after changing folders with the app, they may be uploaded again. It is expected that most users will not change accounts often, so this should be rare.

  • If you add new items to a local album which was already uploaded, the new items will be uploaded the next time you perform an upload.

Existing Albums

Before uploading, the app will search for any albums with the same name which were previously created by this app. If they exist, it will upload to those instead of creating a new album.

However, if another album exists with the same name which was NOT created by this app (it was created manually by the user, or by another app), the app will be forced to create a duplicate album - the user will end up with two albums of the same name. The user is free to change the name of either of the albums.

Note that if you change the name of the album created by the app, the app will try to continue uploading new items to that album. If you change accounts or select a different local folder, the app may create a new album with the original name.

Existing Media Items

If a media item that the app tries to upload already exists in the user's library, a new item will not actually be created.

  • If the media item already exists in the album being uploaded to, there will be no change to the user's library. The app will remember that it doesn't need to upload the item again (unless you change accounts or folders - see above).

  • If the media item does not exist in the album being uploaded to, the existing item will be added to the album. Again, the app will not upload the item again next time.

In both cases, no error will be shown and the app will behave as though it has uploaded the item as normal - Google Photos will simply prevent the creation of two identical items in the same library.

Limitations

It is not currently possible for the app to perform any more detailed sorting of the user's library. This is due to limitations from Google which prevents apps from modifying any existing items in a user's library.

If you would like to see better features available in future to help you manage your library, please let Google know at their Issue Tracker.