Did you know that even though you have your Google Photos app configured to automatically back up your photos, that not all of them will be backed up? It’s true and a little boring. It would be nice for Google to ask the user when they first open the app whether or not they want specific albums to be backed up. But instead, it’s just the Camera Album, which is full of the pictures you’d most want to save anyway.
Fortunately, there is an easy way to make sure that all of your photos are backed up to your Google Photos account. However, once Google stops offering unlimited free storage, you might want to change these settings. As it will fill your cloud storage much faster. But it’s still a few months away, at this point.
How to make sure all your photos are backed up to Google Photos
First, open the Google Photos app on your smartphone.
Then look for the Library button in the bottom menu. And tap on it.
Now tap on the Utilities icon. It will be in the middle of the page.
Now tap on “Back up device folders”. It will be down under the “import” section.
To note: you can see a map for it towards the top of the page, tap on “Device Folders” and it will take you to the same page.
From there, you will see different albums stored on your device. By default, it will automatically save your photo album. But the others may not be downloaded.
For each of them you want to download, just tap the cloud icon in the corner. If you are unable to tap this icon, you will be redirected to this album and then you can tap the “Save & Sync” button at the top.
And then repeat this for each album you want to download.
Usually I only upload the camera and screenshots. If you are using a Samsung smartphone, the screenshots are part of the camera album. Make things even easier.
And that’s all there is to it.