

Quick take: For those who own Apple products, this service makes backing up your images super-convenient, but the 5GB of free storage doesn’t get you very far. Pros: Free but limited storage, automatic photo uploading.Ĭons: The free storage limit is only 5GB. For instance, you can use search terms such as “tree,” “cat,” or “man” to find the photo you’re looking for. That last feature uses artificial intelligence to recognize objects in your photos, which can help locate items in your collection. Like photo storage services from Apple and Google, Amazon Photos also features a mobile app, Prime Photos, which offers editing features, tagging, support for those “live” motion photos you see on smartphones, and machine-learning-supported search. For files larger than 2GB, though, you have to use the free Amazon Drive Desktop app instead of the Drive website to upload images. And unlike most free options, Amazon Photos has no size restrictions for images. Quick take: If you’re an Amazon Prime member, you already have access to this free unlimited service. Pros: Unlimited storage, automatic photo uploading, photo printing service.Ĭons: Requires $119 annual subscription to Amazon Prime. Once you have a sense of which plans suit your storage needs and budget, consider the devices you own, how you’d like to access your images, and what you intend to do with them. But most shutterbugs will get along just fine with 100 gigabytes for $20 per year with Google Drive. If you’re looking for a mountain of storage, Dropbox will grant you 2 terabytes’ worth for $120 per year.
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And they often shrink the size of your image files, which can be a problem if you later want to have those images printed, edited, or displayed on a tablet or TV screen.Įven plans billed as unlimited may shrink image size, so be sure to ask for clarification on that before moving your entire photo library onto the cloud.įor the casual, social photo sharer whose snapshots won’t make it further than the occasional Instagram or Twitter post, downscaling isn’t that big of a problem.īut if you want to print gallery-sized images or store pictures captured with a powerful, dedicated camera, look for services that offer a large storage allotment and won’t lower your image quality.īeing able to save all your images in the original size is what makes the paid options appealing-especially if you’re serious about photography. Some services may allow you to store photos but not video or other files. As the chart below shows, most services limit the amount of storage available at no cost. I assume that the browser's traversal of the file hierarchy gets around Amazon's limitation on uploading package contents.Free sounds great, but you have to be prepared to make a few compromises. I tried the same thing using the Amazon desktop app, and it didn't work. It does however preserve the original pictures. This of course does not back up any of the organization (albums, smart albums, slideshows, books, etc.) or changes I have made over the years in iPhoto.

It failed on a few files (I have a few videos longer than the 2GB limit), and eventually used up all of my limit of non-photo files, but it uploaded most of my 271GB of photos, 8,710 photos and counting so far. When I got to the page where I can upload photos ( ), In the Finder, I dragged the iPhoto-Masters folder over the Chrome window, and it started uploading. (2) Using Google Chrome, I logged into my Amazon Cloud Drive.
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Inside that is a series of folders that are named after years. "~/Pictures/iPhoto-Masters" is the location and name I gave for the link.Īfter doing this, in my Pictures folder I can see a folder alias called "iPhoto-Masters". "~/Pictures/iPhoto\ Library/Masters/" refers to the folder inside the iPhoto library where all the original are kepts. "ln" is the command to make a link "-s" is the option to make it symbolic. Ln -s ~/Pictures/iPhoto\ Library/Masters/ ~/Pictures/iPhoto-Masters This is normally hidden in the Finder, so I typed this in terminal: (1) I made a symbolic link to the directory (folder) containing the originals inside my iPhoto library. Here is what I did, and it worked (mostly) to back up my photos to my unlimited photos with Amazon Prime:
