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Whether you’re looking for a backup solution for the photos on your iPhone or you’re just trying to free up some space, moving your pictures to the cloud is a great way to do it. One of the top cloud services, specifically for pictures, is Google Photos. But like all of the other photo storage services, there are some caveats. While Google promises free unlimited storage, there are some limits to it. But don’t worry — keep reading this article, and we will dive into the details.

12 April 2021: Added 50,000 item sharing limits note. 3 March 2021: Maximum file upload size updated to 250 GB. 16 September 2020: Updated info about OneNote notebooks to clarify that the 2GB file size limit applies to SharePoint as well as OneDrive. 31 August 2020: Updated the invalid or blocked file types guidance about.PST files when Known Folder Move is. Apple: Strictly limit macOS Photos library size using 'Optimize Storage'?Helpful? Please support me on Patreon: th. When you use Finder's List view to work with files on your Mac, a glance at the Size column tells you the size of each file, but when it comes to folders in the list, Finder just shows a couple of.

1. ICloud Photos, formerly known as ‌iCloud‌ Photo Library, is an Apple service that moves the user's entire photo and video library into the cloud.It's part of Apple's push to make it as easy as.
2. Sharing Suggestions are limited to 5000 items with a maximum share size of 1GB.

Does Google Photos really offer unlimited storage?

The short answer is yes. Google Photos offers free unlimited storage, but that’s only if you don’t mind your pictures and videos being slightly compressed. What’s meant by “slightly” is that Google will limit your images to 16MP resolution and your videos to 1080p. If you’re treating this storage solution as a backup for your photo library, you might be okay with these limitations.

All that being said, you can still choose to upload full-quality pictures and videos; it will just count against the storage quota of your Google One account. And don’t worry, you can always upgrade that storage quota if you run out, but we’ll get into that later.

Before you start uploading your entire photo library to Google Photos, make sure you get rid of unwanted similar shots and duplicates. By using an app like Gemini Photos, you can quickly scan for them and declutter your library.

The Google Photos storage limit for uncompressed photos

You can always decide later that you want your pictures to be stored uncompressed in Google Photos. If you opt to do this, it will count against your Google One storage, which means it shares space with anything else you have stored in Gmail, Google Drive, or any of the other G Suite apps. Since you’re sharing storage across all your Google services, you can get 15 GB for free or upgrade to 100 GB for $1.99/month.

If, after you’ve had a chance to play with Google Photos, you decide you want to switch to uncompressed pictures, you can change that from within the iOS app.

1. On your iPhone, open the Google Photos app.
2. Tap the Menu button (the three lines to the left in the Search bar).
3. Tap Settings > Backup & Sync > Upload Size.
4. Choose Original.

Getting more Google Photos storage

When you set up Google Photos to back up your library at original quality, you’ll eventually run out of space if you’re not regularly managing your library. But Google offers some very basic cleanup tools to help you free up some space. And, of course, you can always upgrade your storage space.

How to free up space in Google Photos

Fortunately, Google Photos offers an easy tool to help you clean up your library. After an initial scan, the app shows you clutter, such as screenshots and old meeting notes that you’ll likely want to get rid of now.

1. Open the Google Photos app.
2. Tap the Menu button (the three lines to the left in the Search bar).
3. Tap “Manage your library.”
4. You’ll be shown an Organization card. Tap “Review suggestions” to go through the photos.

How to upgrade your Google Photos storage plan

If you’ve cleaned up your Google Photos library and still need more space, you can upgrade your storage plan directly within the iOS app.

1. Open the Google Photos app.
2. Tap the Menu button, the three lines to the left in the Search bar.
3. Then, tap Settings > Backup & Sync > Buy storage.
4. Follow the on-screen instructions to choose your plan and upgrade.

Google Photos is a great solution for your photo library, whether you’re looking to back it all up or just free up space on your phone. And with free, unlimited storage, there’s almost no risk in giving it a test run. So if you want to test the waters of cloud storage for your pictures and videos, Google Photos presents you with a great chance to do just that.

Apple likes to hide the fuss of technical choices in its software. That includes Photos, which provides a lot of sophisticated functions with a friendly veneer. However, when it comes to exporting images, you might not know which option to take because so many choices appear quite similar.

To follow along, select any image in Photos. Now, in the File > Export menu, you see two options: Export 1 Photo and Export Unmodified Original for 1 Photo.

The second submenu item is easier to explain first. When you import media into Photos, it retains the original. Any changes you apply to it are stored as a series of modifications. In the library catalog and when you view an image, you see the modified version. Choose to export an unmodified original, and Photos copies exactly what was originally imported. It’s useful that the app retains the original, instead of only storing modified forms, in case you want to discard all your edits or export an image to edit again in another piece of software.

Most people routinely use the choice above it, however: Export X Photo(s). When you select that option, Photos offers an export dialog that has a lot of menus. (If you don’t see all the menus in the figure, click the downward-pointing arrow, and it will open to reveal more choices)

No matter what format the image was in when imported, you may select among PNG, JPEG, and TIFF in the Photo Kind menu. With PNG and TIFF exports, all the detail of the original is preserved, and there’s no option for lower quality.

With JPEG, however, you can pick an option in JPEG Quality that reduces file size by having less perfect fidelity to the original image. The lower quality you choose, the blurrier and more pixellated an image appears when you’re looking at an image at 100 percent.

Mac Photos Maximum Library Sized

Quality is distinct from resolution: Resolution describes how much information was captured in the image; it’s a description of the level of detail. Quality determines how crisp or authentic to the original the exported file appears. You can have an image with enough resolution to make a billboard from, but the quality could be so low that a lot of detail is lost. (Many image-editing packages provide an interactive export dialog that previews an image as you adjust settings for quality and resolution, including the estimated resulting file size in bytes.)

If you started with a lower-quality JPEG, exporting it as High or Maximum won’t magically make it more detailed—the original fidelity is lost. But if your original file is a Raw image (which captures raw sensor information from a camera) or was created as a high-quality JPEG, you should consider High or Maximum when exporting if you’re trying to produce a new image close to the original.

For all the image export formats, you can pick resolution from the Size menu. Full Size preserves the resolution of the imported image. The smaller sizes are appropriate typically for low-throughput situations—like a low-speed cell or Wi-Fi network—or ones in which data transfer is expensive or limited.

If you have a particular resolution target for an image, you can also pick Custom from the Size menu and set the maximum height or width, or the maximum dimension of either height or width. That’s useful if you were given a target size for an image that will be placed on a Web page or used in a layout for digital or offset printing.

This Mac 911 article is in response to a question submitted by Macworld reader Sara.

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Mac Photos Maximum Library Size