Backing up your photos is an important step before receiving a staff replacement device, and updating your operating system. This backup practice can be done regularly as well to protect your photos from being lost to unforeseen techincal issues. 

 

Backup your Photos into Google Drive 


  1. Go to your Finder and go to the Pictures folder.
  2. Find the Photos icon and hold Control while clicking on it.
  3. Select "Compress 'Photo Library'" and it will generate a new file.
  4. Open Google Drive and select upload, just like you would for any other file.
  5. Go to the Pictures folder and locate the "Photo Library.zip" that you generated in step 2.
  6. Upload this to Google Drive and your photos library has been backed up.
  7. Later on, you can download this .zip file, click on it, and drag it back into your pictures folder. When it asks you if you want to replace the file, select yes. This restores your photo library to the state it was in when you backed it up.

This does not include pictures you have stored outside of your Photos library, they will need uploaded separately.


  1. Photos stored on your local drive can be uploaded directly to a folder in Google Drive. 
  2. Create a "Photos <your descriptive name here>" folder in your Google Drive. 
  3. Right-click to pull up the pop-up menu. 
  4. Select Upload files
  5. Use command on a Mac device, and control on a PC device to select all the photos you want to add from Finder for Mac, or Explorer for PC, respectively.
  6. Click upload.

Create a folder for your Photos

 Upload the Photos you want stored in your new folder