Q: What’s the best way to share photos and videos with a group of contributors who will be using both iPhone and Android smartphones?
A: It is becoming very common for a group of people sharing an experience to share their photos and videos, whether you are at a music festival, in a tour group or at a wedding.
Statistically speaking, it’s about 50/50 these days when it comes to iPhone users versus Android users, so it’s important to find a platform-independent approach that’s easy to use and to understand.
Apple is quite proud of the way they do things and they aren’t really interested in allowing Android users, so my recommendation is to use Google Photos.
Shared album preview
Any member of the group can start the process by using Google Photos to create a new album and then share it with the group.
This requires everyone who is going to participate to have a Google account, which they can create for free if they don’t already have one.
It doesn’t matter who creates the shared album, anyone invited to the group can also invite others, so there’s no need for one person to invite all participants.
Here’s how to start
Open Google Photos on your mobile device, then navigate to the “Sharing” option at the bottom. The first option should be “Create shared album” when you tap “Share”.
To create the album, type a description in the “Add title” section and press Enter. You can now start adding photos from your device or click on the “Share” option in the upper right corner to start inviting others to the shared album.
I recommend uploading a few photos to the album so that when others join for the first time, they’ll know they’ve joined the correct album.
You must also access the “Options” menu of the shared album by clicking on the three dots in the upper right corner and activate the “Link sharing” option if you want to allow anyone in the group to share the album. album with others.
You can start inviting people via text, email, or by creating a link that can be posted on private forums or through other forms of messaging.
Once each participant clicks on the link, they are either redirected directly to their Google Photos account or informed that they must download Google Photos and/or log in to participate.
This works seamlessly when you send the invite to a Gmail address, so if an attendee has multiple email accounts, choose their Gmail address for the invite.
iPhone users have an extra step
While Android users will likely engage seamlessly, iPhone users who don’t have the Google Photos app or a Google Account will need a few steps to get started.
In order for them to be able to share their photos with the group, they will need to allow the Google Photos app to access images and videos on their iPhone, which it will ask for upon installation.
How to start sharing photos
Once each user joins the group, adding photos and videos is the same for everyone and can be accessed through the “Sharing” or “Library” options in the app.
Once you tap on the “Add Photos” option, to get a better view of each photo, click on the icon in the lower right corner to expand the thumbnail view to the larger option.
From there, just tap the empty circle in the top left corner of each image you want to add.
For a full overview of Google Photos sharing, go to: https://bit.ly/3PevNKD
Ken Colburn is founder and CEO of Data Doctors Computer Services, datadoctors.com. Ask any technical questions on facebook.com/DataDoctors or on Twitter @TheDataDoc.
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