Basically, it’s like Google photos, right? I’ve only uploaded a pic or two because it entered me to win something. Plus, as a Pixel owner, Google gives me unlimited space for my photos.
Edit: Looks like it’s unlimited space for Prime members. So if you have amazon video devices, you can have your photos displayed on an Amazon Show or Fire Stick from the cloud. I do this will the google home and chromecast, "Ok, Google. Show me pictures of my cats on the Chrome Cast."
I may sync the tons of photos on my home PC to Amazon just as another backup.
That wasn’t really an answer to your question… It uses software (or an app) to sync the photos that are on your PC or mobile device and store them in the cloud on Amazon’s servers. You’d have to install that software on the device with your photos on it and it will run in the background to upload your photos from the storage locations you define. I’m not sure what happens if you delete a photo on your PC. There may be settings that would also delete it from the cloud if you want.
If it’s anything like other cloud services, when you take a photo it will upload a copy to Prime Photos. Other devices with Prime Photos can see all the pictures you’ve taken on the machine in addition to the photos uploaded in the cloud. If you delete a photo that’s been uploaded to the cloud you can still view the photo.
So when you’re running out of space on a machine you can just delete it from the machine to save space without losing the photo.
Last fall my hard drive broke, and the repair shop salvaged my data and installed a solid state hard drive, unfortunately far too small for my needs. It almost filled the hard drive just with my photos. When I got Amazon Prime and installed the app, it automatically uploaded all the photos to the cloud. So far so good. My computer’s drive is now completely full, so I wanted to move the photos on the computer to a portable drive to free up that space on my computer. But when I did this yesterday, I got a message from Amazon saying I had deleted a large number of pictures and had 30 days to reload them from my trash bin or they would be lost. I don’t understand, do I have to keep these photos on my computer in order for them to be on Amazon Prime? I looked at Prime Photos on my tablet, and all the photos appear to be there, but every time I boot up my computer I get a message from Amazon saying I need to decide whether to salvage these deleted photos or lose them forever. Obviously I don’t want to lose these photos from Prime, I was counting on that being a safe place for my photos. But they are rendering my laptop unusable. Maybe somebody can explain to me what’s going on here?
I do have a serious crapton of photos, and probably a third should be deleted, but even if I took the time to cull them, I`d still have a crapton of photos needing to be preserved somewhere. Thanks!
@moondrake my best guess without actually poking around with the service myself is that Amazon has some sort of syncing software that is trying to maintain parity between your local files and the cloud-hosted ones. I can’t imagine that this is a requirement, it would be a pretty useless service if it only allowed you to backup the files you store locally.
@jbartus Sounds logical. Any idea what to do about it? I do have the photos backed up on a portable drive. I suppose I could wait the 30 days and see if they actually disappear from the cloud server.
I can’t find anything about deleting from the PC and keeping in the cloud… As long as you don’t delete the files through the amazon software/app, I don’t see why it would also delete in the cloud.
@medz Thanks. It’s a lot easier to understand coming person to person. When I try and research this stuff on my own I often feel as if it’s written in a foreign language.
@moondrake there is some mention online of an upload but don’t Sync button. Probably the best way to back up to the cloud for your purposes of getting space freed up.
@moondrake you can have the files on the cloud and not on your computer. You installed the drive app and it was syncing hte folders just like dropbox and google drive do. All you have to do is either put the files back temporarily or recover them from the cloud (making sure to disable the sync tool). Also make sure to remove all of your folders from syncing with your pc (by using the app on the pc). Then you can upload the files to the cloud but not sync them. This is the best way to do it.
@jbartus i use upload but don’t sync frequently, after i take a bunch of pics at a birthday party or soccer tournament or cross country meet with my canon, i just upload without sync from the app. Then store my files on an external. That is detached from a computer and internet 90% of the time.
Basically, it’s like Google photos, right? I’ve only uploaded a pic or two because it entered me to win something. Plus, as a Pixel owner, Google gives me unlimited space for my photos.
Edit: Looks like it’s unlimited space for Prime members. So if you have amazon video devices, you can have your photos displayed on an Amazon Show or Fire Stick from the cloud. I do this will the google home and chromecast, "Ok, Google. Show me pictures of my cats on the Chrome Cast."
I may sync the tons of photos on my home PC to Amazon just as another backup.
That wasn’t really an answer to your question… It uses software (or an app) to sync the photos that are on your PC or mobile device and store them in the cloud on Amazon’s servers. You’d have to install that software on the device with your photos on it and it will run in the background to upload your photos from the storage locations you define. I’m not sure what happens if you delete a photo on your PC. There may be settings that would also delete it from the cloud if you want.
If it’s anything like other cloud services, when you take a photo it will upload a copy to Prime Photos. Other devices with Prime Photos can see all the pictures you’ve taken on the machine in addition to the photos uploaded in the cloud. If you delete a photo that’s been uploaded to the cloud you can still view the photo.
So when you’re running out of space on a machine you can just delete it from the machine to save space without losing the photo.
Last fall my hard drive broke, and the repair shop salvaged my data and installed a solid state hard drive, unfortunately far too small for my needs. It almost filled the hard drive just with my photos. When I got Amazon Prime and installed the app, it automatically uploaded all the photos to the cloud. So far so good. My computer’s drive is now completely full, so I wanted to move the photos on the computer to a portable drive to free up that space on my computer. But when I did this yesterday, I got a message from Amazon saying I had deleted a large number of pictures and had 30 days to reload them from my trash bin or they would be lost. I don’t understand, do I have to keep these photos on my computer in order for them to be on Amazon Prime? I looked at Prime Photos on my tablet, and all the photos appear to be there, but every time I boot up my computer I get a message from Amazon saying I need to decide whether to salvage these deleted photos or lose them forever. Obviously I don’t want to lose these photos from Prime, I was counting on that being a safe place for my photos. But they are rendering my laptop unusable. Maybe somebody can explain to me what’s going on here?
I do have a serious crapton of photos, and probably a third should be deleted, but even if I took the time to cull them, I`d still have a crapton of photos needing to be preserved somewhere. Thanks!
@moondrake my best guess without actually poking around with the service myself is that Amazon has some sort of syncing software that is trying to maintain parity between your local files and the cloud-hosted ones. I can’t imagine that this is a requirement, it would be a pretty useless service if it only allowed you to backup the files you store locally.
@jbartus Sounds logical. Any idea what to do about it? I do have the photos backed up on a portable drive. I suppose I could wait the 30 days and see if they actually disappear from the cloud server.
@moondrake You should recover the files as described here:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201376770
I can’t find anything about deleting from the PC and keeping in the cloud… As long as you don’t delete the files through the amazon software/app, I don’t see why it would also delete in the cloud.
@medz Thanks. It’s a lot easier to understand coming person to person. When I try and research this stuff on my own I often feel as if it’s written in a foreign language.
@moondrake there is some mention online of an upload but don’t Sync button. Probably the best way to back up to the cloud for your purposes of getting space freed up.
@moondrake you can have the files on the cloud and not on your computer. You installed the drive app and it was syncing hte folders just like dropbox and google drive do. All you have to do is either put the files back temporarily or recover them from the cloud (making sure to disable the sync tool). Also make sure to remove all of your folders from syncing with your pc (by using the app on the pc). Then you can upload the files to the cloud but not sync them. This is the best way to do it.
@jbartus i use upload but don’t sync frequently, after i take a bunch of pics at a birthday party or soccer tournament or cross country meet with my canon, i just upload without sync from the app. Then store my files on an external. That is detached from a computer and internet 90% of the time.
If you have any questions about prime photos, familiar and been using for what feels like close to a year now.