What’s the difference between Google Photos High Quality vs Original setting? There is no great surprise if you have never heard of that. If you are like most people, you don’t really pay much attention to the prompts when you install new apps.
It’s when you download Google Photos onto a new device that you will be asked to choose between High Quality or Original Quality for the Google photo upload.
In this article, you’ll learn a bit more about both and which type of cloud storage is more adequate for your photo storage.
By November 2020 Google updated the terms of service, please check our update near the end of the article.
Table of Contents
- Google Photos High Quality vs Original
- Images
- Videos
- Google Photos Original vs High Quality: How to change from one to another?
- 2021 Update: Unlimited photo storage is no longer free after June 21st, 2021
- Wrap Up
Google Photos High Quality vs Original
Google Photos High Quality
This is the option we’d suggest, you can high quality and also .
When you choose High Quality photos to back up your photos in Google Photos, you are given unlimited storage. Even better, it’s unlimited free storage.
All of your photos larger than 16MP will be compressed and/or resized to 16MP. It will also convert all of the different photo formats into JPEG. If you upload a video that is higher than 1080p, it will be resized to Full-HD 1080p.
Since you get , you can get .
Google Photos Original
As the name suggests, when you backup original quality photos, photos, and videos will remain in the original upload size. Resolution, format, and the file size remain as to when you took them.
With this option, Google Photos offers you a limited amount of which Google. Currently, the is set at 15GB. If you feel that the from is too limited for you, you can buy more Google account storage.
Uploading images in original quality is generally recommended for photos over 16MP, videos over 1080p, and printing large banners.
Images
For small photos
We wanted to discover if there was actually any difference between the quality of the image using the different storage options and a 12MP photo. Our original photo had 16.7 MB.
Once we had stored it as high quality, the megapixel rating remained the same but it was now taking just 1.05MB, which is a massive saving in storage.
What surprised us was that there was no perceptible difference in the image quality. We even cropped the image and took a closer look. There was still no visible loss of quality.
It wasn’t until we zoomed by 500% that we could just make out a small difference in the quality. But really, when are we ever going to zoom in on our photos that much?
For large photos
Many smartphones are now equipped with 20MP and even bigger sensors. In this case, images backed up to Google Photos will be resized. Our 20MP image was 9.19MB.
Once we had saved it as high quality in Google Photos, it was compressed and resized to 16MP and 4.93MB. Once again, there was no perceptible difference in the quality of the compressed image.
Using RAW Images
RAW photos are those that have all of the image data recorded and unlike JPEG, the information is not compressed. The quality of a RAW photo is much higher than JPEG. RAW formats can be ERF from Epson, RW2 from Panasonic, or DCR from Kodak.
When looking at a 23MP DNG, it was compressed to an 82KB Jpeg. Here, we noticed a difference! With the Google Photos High Quality setting, the image wasn’t quite as crisp as the original size photo.
This is probably something that would only concern professionals as the difference was slight. What was more noticeable was the color. The colors weren’t as vivid and the overall image was a fraction darker.
Videos
While we were impressed with the images that were compressed, uploading videos in High Quality left us somewhat disappointed. And we weren’t alone.
We tried a range of different-sized videos expecting them all to convert into HD 1080p.
When uploading each one, we noticed that the files were anywhere from 360p to 720p. After a few days to fully process, we did see an increase in the quality, but rarely to the full 1080p as advertised.
Google Photos Original vs High Quality: How to change from one to another?
Now that you are aware of the different settings, you might want to change yours, particularly if you are low on storage space. Here are two ways to adjust your settings depending on your device:
On an Android or iOS (smartphone or tablet)
- Open the Google Photos app and sign in to your Google account;
- Click on your account profile photo or initial at the top right-hand side;
- Choose “Photo Settings” and then “Back up & sync”;
- Here you can choose between High Quality and Original. If it won’t allow you to go from High Quality to Original, it could be that you don’t have enough storage space.
On a computer
If you access this link it will open your Google Photos settings. Now you will have two options. The Original setting shows you how much space you have left and below is the High Quality option. The one that is selected is what you have active now. Just choose the setting according to your preference.
2021 Update: Unlimited photo storage is no longer free after June 21st, 2021
Google announced on 11th November 2020 that Google Photos will end its free unlimited storage on June 1st, 2021.
Once the 15 GB of the account has been used, Google Photos will start charging for it.
Note that all photos and videos uploaded before June 1st, 2021 won’t count to the 15 GB limit.
Also, Google Pixel phone users will still be able to upload unlimited photos in High Quality setting for free after June 1st without having the 15 GB limit.
As for now, there is no Google Photos storage limit, which is a great advantage by itself over almost any other cloud service. In the unlimited High-Quality setting, Google will compress the photos and save them at 16MP. Videos will be compressed to 1080p (Full-HD resolution).
Wrap Up
The debate between Google Photos High Quality vs Original resolution will depend on the type of use of your account and on the purpose of your photos.
If you only need to keep all of your memories in a safe place, the High Quality setting is perfect, especially when you consider how many photos and videos we have on our phones. It’s the way to choose if you want to get unlimited photos in your photo library.
Moving them into Google Photos means that they are still easy to access but your device will have more space available and will probably run better.
On the other hand, if you prefer your photos in a RAW format, or you are using videos for professional use, we highly recommend backing up in the Original setting.
Check out some of our other awesome articles:
- Choosing the best app to organize your photos
- Moving photos from Google Photos to Google drive and vice-versa
- Transfer Google Photos to a new account
- How to download photos and albums from Google Photos
- Recover permanently deleted photos from Google Photos and Drive
- Editing photos with Google Drive
- Google Photos vs Google Drive
