google-drivegoogle-photos
I'm using Google's Backup and Sync tool to automatically save photos from my hard drive onto the cloud. The problem is that I want my photos to go into Google Photos but NOT into Google Drive. In Google Drive they consume my storage quota, and I only want specifically designated documents to be synchronized there.
Is there any way to do this? Even manually deleting the photos from Drive doesn't help because afterwards they are either deleted from my local drive or re-synchronized.
Sure you can by whitelisting which folders you want to sync.
Though, I am not aware of any "blacklisting" approach with Google Drive (i.e "not sync selected folders").
If you're looking for other solutions, you can try some other services such as Bitcasa or BackBlaze.
There is no right combination of settings.
The Google Photos upload checkbox (in the Backup and Sync preferences) is a blanket toggle: it affects all the selected local backup/sync folders. So if you want to backup Drive-only files, you need to leave it unchecked and continue manually uploading your images to the Photos app.
As of yet, the B&S client does not allow fine-grained control of what gets uploaded into Photos. Also for backups, be reminded that Photos has limitations on file types and min/max sizes.
As a workaround for periodic backups to Photos, you can try the following:
For "Removing item", select "Don't remove items everywhere".
Select only the folder(s) you want to back up to Photos
As a side-effect to using B&S, you also retain the images in your Google Drive. But they are linked invisibly to Photos, so:
Best Answer
Currently, the only way to upload photos to Google Photos and not into Drive, is to use the Google Photos website. On the top right, you can click "upload", then "Computer".
I have not encountered problems when uploading hundreds of photos at a time this way. I agree that it doesn't feel robust for many gigabytes, although most people have fast internet connections. Google should develop a program (like Backup and Sync) that can handle bulk uploads in a robust manner.
Remember to (in Backup and Sync) un-select the folders on your computer that contain your photos, if you don't want to sync them with Drive.