Sync'ing Photos From Your Cell

If you are like me you probably have hundreds of photos and videos on your cell phone but would like a way to back them up.  In the past I used to use Dropbox as a method of backup.  I had my cell configured where I would take a picture and a copy would instantly be uploaded to Dropbox.  This method worked PERFECTLY for years, but April 1, 2018 there are some changes coming with Dropbox and Samsung which would alter the ease and effectiveness of this process.  If you want to read about this, click here.

So in looking for a method to backup my pictures in a way similar to Dropbox, I found a program called PhotoSync.  The program has several ways to back up your photos, but for me and this article it is solely about using it to backup to a computer.  There are two parts to the program, one you install on a computer where you want to save your pictures to and the other is an app installed on your cell or tablet - works on Android and iOS.




The install on the computer is pretty straight-forward.  Once installed click on the icon in the system tray and open Settings.  If it is not already checked click on the box to load PhotoSync on system startup.  Then click the "Receive" option in the left side menu.


On this screen you can configure the location where PhotoSync will save pictures and videos to.  In my example, I have a dedicated drive that I choose to have it save to.

On your phone or tablet, open the app and you are greeted with a screen showing your devices library of all the photos and videos stored on it.  If your device has an SD card installed and you store your videos and pictures there, they will show up as well!


Tap on the three vertical dots in the upper right corner of your screen and then tap on Settings.  My screenshots are from an android device so it is possible your settings may vary if you are on an iOS device.


The PhotoSync Preferences box should appear.  When it does, tap on the Quick Transfer option and you can configure your computer by following the on-screen prompts.  Selecting your computer when it is found. 


If you purchase the program you can make use of the Autotransfer option where when you arrive home and your device connects to your home wifi it will automatically upload your new pictures and videos for you. 


At the time of this article, the program was less than $3 so I bought the program and have been extremely pleased with it.


If you prefer to use the free version, you will use the manual sync option.  To do so, tap on the red sync circle at the top right of the screen.  Again, my screenshots are from an android device so the location may or may not differ from your device if it is iOS.


If this is your first sync ever, tap on the "All" button and it will upload everything from your cell to the computer.  Otherwise you will mostly use the "New" button. 



Tap on it and then tap on "Computer" and then tap on your computer name from the list and the file transfer will begin.


You now have your own personal storage system for your devices photos and videos.  Storage space limited to your available drive space and if your computer can be expanded upon you can add additional hard drives to it.

Cloud Storage Solutions - Google Drive and Dropbox

Did you know there are over 25 different cloud storage solutions available?  Some of free and some cost as low as $1 a month to over $8 a month.  They all have similar features and some which are unique to themselves.  This article will cover only Google Drive and Dropbox and an effective means of using them both for your mobile device and for your day-to-day operations.

- Use It For Your Camera Picture and Video Backup




Dropbox is one of the free to use or you can subscribe and get more space.  If you follow the advice of this article, the free version is just enough and they offer many ways to earn extra storage space at no cost.  For example, one of several methods of getting extra space for free is by referring friends.  Doing this you can gain up to 16GB of free storage!  For more information on earning free space, click here.  Sometimes if you purchase a new computer device you may be eligible for free space.  In my case, I purchased a Samsung Galaxy S10.5 tablet in early 2015 and I was awarded 48GB of free space!  My space including all of the free methods of increasing space has given me a total 54GB!  I have been a user of Dropbox since 2011.

So what do I do with all this space?  I use it for automatic syncing of my pictures on my cell phone and on the tablet.  The Dropbox app is perfect for this when you open settings and enable camera uploads.  When I take a picture it is saved to my cell but immediately a copy is uploaded to the "Camera Uploads" folder in Dropbox.  If you are low on data or don't want Dropbox to use your data, you can change the setting in the Dropbox app to upload only over wireless.

As with most cloud storage solutions, you can access your Dropbox account from any internet-based computer by going to their website.  There is also a desktop client you can install which will put a "drive" on your local computer, allowing you to easily drag and drop files between your computer and Dropbox as well as browsing, sorting, naming, editing, etc., those files stored.  Files and folders can be shared with others as well.

For current Dropbox pricing information click here.

- Use It For Everything Else





Google Drive is another excellent free storage solution with the option of subscribing for a very low cost for more storage space.  By itself it gives you a location to store documents which you can access from any internet-based device.  It too has a desktop client to go along with the mobile app making editing files, adding and removing files and sharing files with others a breeze.

By default, you are given a whopping 15GB of storage space for free!!  Impressive to say the least.  Google gives you several options for upgrading.  You can upgrade anywhere from 100GB to 30TB if you so desire for as low as $1.99 a month.  For current Google Drive pricing information click here. 

The way I use this service is for everything else.  I have all my pictures and photos sync to Dropbox and have all my other documents, spreadsheets, etc., are stored in Google Drive.  The biggest benefit of storing these files in Google Drive, aside from being able to access them from anywhere, is the use of Google Apps: Docs, Sheets and Slides.  With these free apps provided by Google, which are low-scale Office compatible alternatives, I can open, view and edit any of my files as needed - even on my cell phone!  Collaboration is something Google Apps are really good at, multiple people can edit and interact with the same document each with a revision history making it a good choice for business use as well.

Plus my files are backed up on Google's server so in the unlikely but possible event my only laptop should die tomorrow I don't need to worry about losing all my important files.  With the desktop client, I can easily drag and drop everything and arrange the folders on Google Drive as I see fit.

It also means, if I upgrade my Windows OS to the next version and the upgrade goes awry and I loss everything I merely just reformat my hard drive, reinstall my old OS and then download/install the Google client and I am back in business.    Or if I don't want the client installed, I can still do everything through my web browser - though it won't be as easy as a click and drag.

Between the two, when used as directed in this article, you will have excellent storage backups in case of hardware failure or theft.  You will have the ability to update your resume or create one while eating lunch at your favorite restaurant who provides wireless access in case your device doesn't have cellular data capability.  You can collaborate files from Drive with co-workers or friends and share photos or videos with family members.  Together these apps work wonderful.

My USB drive won't format in Windows!

In times where using Explorer/My Computer will not format the drive, there are a couple of easy to do things to possibly make it work again in Windows.

(Screenshot of Windows 8.1 Professional)

First you will need to open "Computer Management".  There are two easy ways to do this you can click on Start then in the search box type compmgmt.msc and press enter. 

You could also right click on My Computer from the desktop or "This PC" from the Start menu, just depends on which version of Windows you are using.  Then select "Manage" from the submenu. 

Both ways will open Computer Management.  Then expand, if needed, the Storage section on the left side of the screen and click on Disk Management from the submenu.

Now select the flash drive from either location as indicated in the screenshot.  Right click on the drive or partition volume and then click the Format option.

You'll be prompted for a few options to choose from, here you will be able to rename the device.  I usually use my full name, followed by a number based on how many flash drives I own.  Granted this doesn't really help any should the device get lost - unless I misplace it at work, which case a co-worker could plug it into their computer and see the name and know to return it to me.

You are also given the option of doing a quick format.  A Quick Format usually works fine for this but, if it fails to format the device then repeat the steps and uncheck the box. 

A regular format may take a very long time, depending on how large your drive storage is! 

You can also change the File System type.  The options are FAT32, NTFS, and exFAT.  If you don't believe you'll use the drive on anything but a Windows computer then you can change the type to NTFS. 

If you are going to use the drive on Legacy Windows or OS X systems (Leopard and older) change the type to FAT32.  The exFAT option is for highest compatibility between modern Windows and OS X computers, a drive formatted exFAT will play happily between both operating systems.  Linux users would need to install exFAT drivers.

Click OK when ready.  Once it has finished, you can close Computer Management and eject the drive like normal.

There may be an occasion where this will not work.  If this happens, download the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool.  When using this tool, do not perform a Quick Format.  You'll get better results, though a bit slower to process using regular formatting.  You can find this utility by clicking this link.  If this link is broken, do a search for the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool using your favorite search engine.

HELP! I'm STILL out of storage space on my iPad!!

This is a follow-up article to my previous post "Help! I'm out of storage on my iPad!".  When iOS 8.1 was released it introduced a new feature when you delete pictures and videos they are moved to a "Recently Deleted" section in your devices Gallery app. Where they remain for 30 days and then they are automatically removed or you can manually delete them sooner.

There is a bug in iOS where sometimes deleting your pictures and videos, including removing them from the Recently Deleted section does not free up space on your device.  One can spend quite a bit of time removing apps, restarting the device, etc., to no benefit.  So how do you recover the space?  You could go to the extreme of wiping the device but try the following first.

• Go to Settings > General > Date & Time
• Disable Set Automatically
• Tap on the current date & time and roll it back 2-3 years
• Tap General in the upper left and then press the Home button
• Launch the Photos app and go to the Recently Deleted album (even if it says there are 0 photos)
• Is it full of photos? If so, delete them!
• Go back to Settings > General > Date & Time and turn Set Automatically back on

You can now open Settings > General > About and check what it says the free space is.  Keep checking back and you may find the free space keeps increasing!  I recently looked at a fellow co-workers iPad Air which started out with 0 MB of free space and within minutes of completing these steps the iPad had 7.4GB of free space!

HELP! I'm out of storage on my iPad!!

Image source: http://cdn9.howtogeek.com

I am often asked, "my iPad is telling me I am out of free space, what can I do to get more?"  Unlike most Android tablets which have an SD card slot for expanding storage, the iPad does not have one.  Sure you can buy the 5-in-1 camera connection kit but really who wants have a gadget sticking out the bottom of their device?

So what can you do?  To start off, delete apps you no longer use or need.  This is as simple as browsing your home screens, tap and hold on an app until it begins to wiggle and then tap on the x in the corner of the app to remove. 

If, after removing unwanted apps, you still do not have enough free space.  Open SETTINGS > GENERAL > USAGE > MANAGE STORAGE.  This will show a list of items from the largest storage hog to the smallest.  Often I see, as in this example, "Photos & Camera" taking up the most space.  Often several gigs of data is used.

You have a couple options for fixing this!  The first, delete some pictures and videos.  I'd start with videos first, they generally take up more space than pictures do. 

Another option, the solution I use and recommend, is to create a  Dropbox account, download and install the app from either the Google Play store or Apple App store, then enable automatic Camera Uploads in the Dropbox app settings.  I do this on my cell phone and my tablet.  Soon as I take a picture or record a video, it gets uploaded to a "Camera Uploads" folder in Dropbox automatically. 

Image source: Dropbox.com

Don't be too concerned that you start with 2GB of data.  They offer many ways to obtain FREE storage increases and sometimes run 'special' promotions.  For example, in 2012, they would increase your storage by having camera uploads turned on and at the time the more pictures you uploaded within the designated timeframe you would get more storage.  The promotion had a limit of 4.5 GB of storage, which is still a lot of pictures!  By the time the promotion was done, I had increased my storage space to 6.5 GB.  You can also refer friends and when they sign up you earn a bonus 125 MB per friend.  Sometimes the device you use to sync to Dropbox can give you an unexpected bonus.  My Galaxy S Tab when I activated Dropbox on it, gave me a whopping 50 GB of additional storage space!  I currently have 56.5 GB of cloud storage to use in any way I want and didn't have to spend a penny for a premium account.  Of course, you can upgrade to a paid plan and get a whole lot more storage - at the time of this post, you can get 1 TB of storage for under $100 a year.  Another nice benefit of this is you can browse your cloud storage, not just from your phone or tablet but also from any internet connected computer!  This is the solution I suggest and recommend and have been using it since 2011.  As another nice feature, you can also manually move many documents on your device to Dropbox.  Look for the "Open In..." icon to see if your app gives the option to save to another location other than the device.  In cases where there is not, you can always email the file to yourself.  This could be a long process if you have a lot of data to save.  You can even try connecting your iPad to iTunes and see if you can transfer files using it.

Image source: http://travelinlibrarian.info

Google Drive is another cloud storage solution that would also allow you to access your pictures and files from any internet connected computer.  With it, you would enable Backup & Sync from within Google Photos.  I am quite happy with Dropbox, and therefore I have not investigated Google's option thoroughly to be able to praise it enough to truly recommend.  Google Apps, might be a future post one day.

Now for more drastic measures!  If after you have done everything above to free up space and still need more, you could wipe the iPad and start it from fresh!  iOS 9 uses less space than previous versions did, which is good.  So going this direction, delete as many apps as it takes to get enough free space to upgrade.  Then update the iPad by going to SETTINGS > GENERAL > SOFTWARE UPDATE.  Go through the process by following on screen directions, it'll take a little while to download and install so be patient.  Once the iPad has finished the upgrade process, go back to SETTINGS > GENERAL and scroll the right side of the screen down to the bottom and tap on RESET and then select Erase All Content and Settings.  This will erase everything and the iPad will be back at factory settings.  Complete the initial setup of the iPad and sign into the Apple App store and reinstall the apps you want by tapping on the Purchased tab at the bottom and tap on the cloud icon next to the apps.  Don't forget to setup your Dropbox or Google Drive apps from the start so it will backup your data from the beginning!