Google Photos is one of those services, among others like Dropbox, OneDrive, and Flickr, that automatically back up your photos. All of these services are useful for providing quick access to your photos on any device. However, only Google Photos will offer you true unlimited backup of your photos. This is because, unlike other services, Google Photos has many features that the rest don’t. For example, the ability to automatically remove duplicate images, store your photos in high resolution for free, and a built-in tagging icon, among others. Although Google Photos has not been around for a long time, it is one of the fastest growing services with more than 500 million active users today.

Since Google Photos offers the best backup services, any user must be familiar with all its features to get effective services. Here are 15 useful tricks to master Google Photos:

1. Turn off mobile data

This is essential for smartphone users who don’t have unlimited data. Many users use Google Photos not only to backup existing photos on their cameras, but also to automatically back up images that were taken on their smartphones. For this reason, it is crucial to disable mobile data backup and also allow the Google Photos app to only back up when you are charging your phone to protect battery life.

2. Upload old photos

In order for you to save more storage space, it is important that you upload your old photos to the Google Photos library. This is a simple process that just involves dragging and dropping the photos from your external storage. In the library, photos will appear based on the date they were taken, making it easier for you to locate them when you need them. Your connectivity will determine how long the charging process will take.

3. Free up more space on your phone

For a user without an SD card or a phone with unlimited storage, it is important to regularly free up space on your device. Google Photos does this very well by simply tapping free up device storage in the settings menu. This is a safe process because even though the backed up photos will be deleted, you can always access them when you are connected to the Internet.

4. Tag your photos

Tagging people in your photos will come in handy in the future. This is because you can easily identify them by searching for them by name in Google Photos. This makes it easier to find every photo of the person you’re looking for. It also saves time, especially when you’re in a hurry.

5. Get free unlimited storage

Google Photos offers unlimited storage with a little caveat. It only offers a maximum resolution of 16MP. This can be tricky when saving videos and photos in their original quality because they will consume all the space you have. To solve this, it is crucial to save your photos and videos in high quality resolution. This mainly helps you free up some space.

6. Edit and save your photos

Google Photos has an option to edit your photos to the desired look you are after. This feature allows you to add a background color, crop, and more. You can easily remove what you don’t want in your videos or images. However, it is important to save the images once you edit them.

7. Remove geolocation

The images and videos were taken by your phone today and have a lot of location details. This is good for your storage because you’ll want to remember all the details. However, Google Photos uses such information to actively map where your images were taken. This is not a good thing because you don’t want people who see or receive these photos to know exactly where they were taken, especially when you share them via email. For this reason, it is best to remove geolocation.

8. Backup photos from other apps

Google Photos doesn’t just back up the photos you take on your tablet or smartphone. It has a feature that allows you to backup your photos to other apps like Instagram and Facebook among others. You can easily choose which devices to enable backup in the settings menu.

9. Animated Photos

This is another simple trick that makes your photo gallery much more entertaining. The ability to create collages, slideshows, animations and movies from your photos becomes very simple. All you need is to work with the ‘wizard section’ where you get hint cards to make different animations or collages. This automatic Google creation makes photo editing exciting.

10. Test your search option

It is important to understand how to use this. It is useful when you are looking for videos and images similar to what you are looking for. Play around with the search option, but only search Google Photos using common and obscure names.

11. Share and stop sharing

Google Photos comes with a unique feature that makes it easy to share photos and videos. This is through a link that easily shares an image or several of them. It’s important to check them regularly so you can get rid of the ones you no longer need. It’s easily done through the shared links icon in the app.

12. View your photos and videos in Google Drive

This is one of the tricks that everyone who uses Google Photos should know. You can easily view your photos and videos through the photos interface. This feature is especially useful if you already have a lot of text in your Google Drive.

13. Send videos to YouTube

This is another trick that makes sharing videos quick and easy. Google Photos has an option to import photos and videos directly to your YouTube channel. It also gives the option to add a title, tag and share them.

14. Make stories from photos

This feature makes Google Photos very interesting. Stories are often like guided albums that have subtitles. This is easily done through mobile apps. The process involves selecting relevant images, adding captions and locations to provide more information.

15. Change your view

Changing your view primarily involves zooming in and out to better see your images. This is sometimes done using two fingers. However, Google Photos offers an easier option to do the same thing. The service allows you to change the view of the mobile application so that you can get a comfortable view.