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Amazon Photos is an often-overlooked tool that can prevent losing photos with automatic cloud backups – it’s accessible from any device through an app download or web browser. But, how does the software compare to other options like Google Photos or Apple Photos? In this guide, we will walk through the ins and outs of Amazon Photos, including tricks like automatic backups and Family Vault.
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What is Amazon Photos?
The Amazon photo storage platform has a number of different tools
Amazon Photos is digital cloud storage that allows you to store, search, and access your photos and videos from anywhere – as long as you have an internet connection. As a cloud-based service, it allows you to back up your photos so that a lost device doesn’t also mean losing all your photos. You can use it to clear up some space on your device, turn your Echo Show into a digital picture frame, order prints, or share photos.
Amazon Photos is designed for personal use, not commercial photos.
Those photos can also be stored at full resolution, meaning you can easily back up your precious family memories at no additional cost.
While you can upload to Amazon Photos using any web browser, the mobile app is the easiest option to regularly update your backup. The app is available on both iOS and Android devices, and once you’ve downloaded the app and logged in, the process is similar no matter which device you are using.
If you prefer to use a web browser instead of an app, you’ll instead head toamazon.com/photosand sign in. Tap theAdd buttonto upload additional images.
Set it and forget it to keep your photos automatically backed up
you’re able to also set up Amazon Photos so that all the images you take on your smartphone are automatically backed up. This allows the platform to serve as a backup in the event you lose or damage your phone, plus you won’t have to regularly go in and upload images. Again, this process is similar on both iOS and Android.
What is Family Vault, and how do you set it up?
Family Vault is different from sharing in that it gives family members the ability to manage images
Amazon Photos allows Prime Members to add as many as six family members to a group to upload photos and videos together. Family Vault allows your whole family to access and contribute to the digital photo archive.
Only the person who created the Family Vault needs to have an active Prime Membership.
Better still, the people added to the Family Vault get access to their Amazon Photos account at no extra cost, with the same benefit of unlimited photo storage and 5GB of video storage. Only the person who created the Family Vault needs to have an active Prime Membership.
Once uploaded to Amazon Photos, your images are available to view in several ways. You can set them to display on various devices, includingAmazon Fire TV,Amazon Echo Show devices, andAmazon Fire Tablets. Because Amazon Photos is also available on a web browser, family members don’t need to own a specific device to access the images.
To set up and use Family Vault, you’ll first need to set it up using a web browser. After the initial setup, then you can use the mobile apps or web browser to share images to the vault.
To set up the Family Vault:
Once Family Vault is set up, you can share by clicking on a photo, then clicking on theShare icon.
Family Vault isn’t the only way to share on Amazon Photos. Using the Sharing icon on the app or web browser allows you to create groups of up to 50 people to share the images with. Unlike Family Vault, sharing doesn’t give others access to the free Prime photo storage. Family Vault also allows other family members more tools to manage the shared images, while sharing just allows others to view and comment on the photos in the shared album.
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Using Amazon Photos, you can get prints of your images
Another feature of the Amazon Photos app is that you may use it to order prints and photo products from Amazon. If you have a Prime Membership, you’ll receive free shipping on your Amazon photo prints as well.
The process differs slightly when using a web browser instead of the mobile app. Head toamazon.com/Amazon-Photos, log into your account, then click Order Prints.
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Can you search for specific things on Amazon Photos?
One of the things Amazon Photos can do is help you find a specific photo using facial recognition and object recognition. You can use the search bar to type in cat, for example, to find all the cat photos you’ve ever uploaded. It also works to find photos of a specific person.
However, this feature is only for Prime Members and only works on iOS; Amazon removed the feature from the web platform. It’s a mark against Amazon photos for Android users and non-Prime members, as search is a popular tool for Google Photos and Apple Photos.
How does Amazon Photos compare to Google Photos?
The biggest reason to choose Amazon Photos over Google Photos is the free unlimited photo storage for Prime members. You may also want to choose Amazon’s option if you want to make your Fire TV or Echo Show display a slideshow of your photos.
Google Photos, however, has more integrated tools. Google’s photo storage platform has a search tool, where Amazon’s is limited to iOS devices and Prime members only. Google Photos also hasbuilt-in AI editing tools, whereas Amazon’s are more basic. The downside to Google Photos? There’s no unlimited storage option. you’re able to get up to 20 TB, but that’s with the $99 monthly subscription. That storage is for Google Photos as well as the company’s other platforms like Drive.
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