It’s rare these days to take photos and videos with anything other than a phone or tablet. As straightforward and convenient as this is, however, backing up photos and making them easy to share is an entirely different matter. That is until I started using Microsoft OneDrive.
Although I wasn’t a huge fan in the past, the latest OneDrive client for iOS (iPad/iPhone), Android, and Windows Phone is great. It allows me to consolidate all my photos and videos to a single place where they are:
- Backed up
- Stored in the same place
- Easy to Share
Sounds great right? Let’s review the simple steps.
Auto Upload Photos and Videos on Android to OneDrive
First, we’ll start with Android. Download and install the OneDrive app for Android. When you initially set it up, it will ask you if you want to back up full-resolution photos and videos to OneDrive automatically. Go ahead and turn it on. By default, they will only upload over Wi-Fi, but you can change that if you want to for some reason.
One thing to keep in mind when enabling this on Android, your Google+ and Photos apps might already be automatically backing up photos to Google Drive too. Be sure to disable this if you’re going to use OneDrive instead.
Auto Upload Photos and Videos on iOS Devices (iPhone/iPad) to OneDrive
Moving along to iOS, you need to download the OneDrive app which works on both the iPhone and iPad. We’ve written up detailed instructions for the iPhone and iPad however, in summary, the first time you launch it on your iOS device (iPad in the shot below), it gives you the option to save all of your pictures to OneDrive automatically. By default, it will only upload your photos and video when you connect to Wi-Fi. It’s probably the best choice to leave it that way, so you don’t get overage charges on your data plan.
Note: The iOS OneDrive app allows an extra 3 GB of storage too. However, it looks like this trick only worked after I added it to Android.
If you already have OneDrive App Installed and want to save your photos to OneDrive, launch it and tap Me > Settings > Options > Camera Upload and turn it on.
The Camera Upload feature on iPhone and iPad has several features including:
- Use Mobile Network?
- Include Videos?
- Upload in Background
Photos and Videos are not small these days, so I highly recommend you only enable those photos if you have an unlimited data plan. The last thing you need is a hefty overage fee on your data plan – even worse if the upload takes place while roaming out of the country (insert high pitched scream here!)
One thing I love about uploading your Mobile device photos to OneDrive is they will all be centralized and viewable (and shareable) on the OneDrive website. Microsoft has been doing a fantastic job of updating the site to make it easy to view all your latest photos and even auto-tag your photos and create albums for you.
Storing Photos to OneDrive On Windows Phone
If you’re a Windows Phone 8.1 owner, you’ll be asked to back up photos (and other phone data) to OneDrive during the initial set up. To make sure everything is being backed up to OneDrive, and the quality of your backed up photos, go to Settings > Backup > photos + videos. There you have a few options on what you want the quality to be. I always change mine to Best quality for both; because the file sizes will be larger, Windows Phone will upload them only when you connect to Wi-Fi.
Final Thoughts
The benefit of using OneDrive on your smartphone(s) and tablet(s) versus iCloud or Google Drive is you can view and organize your photos from more locations and devices and as I mentioned earlier, you can easily see and share the photos online.
What are your thoughts? Are you using a trick to backup all your mobile photos and videos?
