Syncing photos to Google Photos with unlimited storage

Feature requests
#1

Hello.

I would like to know if it would be possible for you to develop the function which would allow syncing photos from one or several folders (local folders or network folders) to Google Photos using “High quality” (not original resolution) setting which allows unlimited photos storage on Google Photos?

If the Google Drive or Google Photos API allows that, this function would be very interesting because:

  • It would allow syncing photos directly from my Raspberry pi (used as a NAS) to Google Photos (at the moment, I have to use the old Picasa or “Google Photos backup” software from a Windows computer connected to my network to do that, moreover “Google Photos backup” software only supports uploading, not syncing changes).

  • As Google Photos Backup software will be disabled by Google in a few weeks and the new Google “Backup and sync” software doesn’t support network drives :rage: (many people are angry about that on Google forums : https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/drive/Fg8X3WoEJrc;context-place=forum/drive ), this function would be very interesting in Insync software.

I would even agree to pay for this function as an add-on to the product if you develop it.

Thanks a lot.

Best regards.

5 Likes
#2

I think I have responded to your email, we will keep this in our list of feature requests! Thanks so much for the input.

1 Like
#3

Bumping to show there is somebody else with definite interest in this feature!

My use-case would be 1-way syncing of selected albums from Google Photos to local storage on Linux. It does seem to me that most would be interested in a 2-way sync though.

#4

Bumping also. Regular sync to a Drive folder in photos isn’t ideal.

#5

Bam! Another one. My workflow is as follows:

  1. Take picture with EVIL camera
  2. Insert SD card into computer
  3. Import photos with Adobe Lightroom
  4. InSync automatically copies them to GDrive

Since my photo collection has now grown to several hundreds of GB’s, it would be amazing to not have those counting as storage. After all, the largest pictures I take are 14.6MP and the largest videos are 1080p so quality won’t be an issue.

Right now “1,003 GB of 1TB” of my Drive are in use so it’s getting kinda tight… I realise that Google has scheduled to double this size (when?!) but the library will grow nonetheless so syncing with ‘High Quality’ would be very useful anyway.

So. InSync, any update on implementing this most basic feature that Google’s sync software has?

#6

It is not possible for Insync to implement this feature.
Google’s public API doesn’t provide this “high quality / unlimited” mode. Only Google’s own software can do that.
See the note in the blue box in this link: https://developers.google.com/photos/library/guides/upload-media#upload-process

As an aside, Google Drive and Google Photos are two separate products. Although there’s some integration, it’s not documented how this integration actually works. Insync currently only deals with Google Drive, and don’t have anything to do with Google Photos. It would be quite difficult (if possible at all) to wander into undocumented territory.

2 Likes
#7

Google’s Photo API does not support uploading at high quality.

I would love to see insync support for Google Photos. I know the Google Photos API includes a very low number of API requests per customer. insync could solve this like rclone has by allowing customers to create their own GCP project.

Is this a possibility?

1 Like
#8

Hello! We’d love to revisit this as soon as our resources permit! Thank you for linking those pages, @imthenachoman!