Does anybody use any of the services mentioned in the header?
I use them all but not for back up or storage “in the cloud” but purely because they are are a convenient way of getting selected items appearing on other computers or devices or sharing them with other people.
For example any photos I take with my phone are automatically uploaded to Dropbox and within a minute or so appear on my desktop and laptop computer. The free version of Dropbox has limit of three devices and only 2GB of storage but by moving photos from Dropbox this has not proved to be a limitation.
M$ OneDrive used to annoy me because it appeared to need you to store files in one of its folders rather than in an established folder (for example the default Windows folders like Documents, Pictures etc) but then I discovered the MKLINK command which enabled you to link to the OneDrive folders without actually moving your files.
Google Drive I use for a different purpose - to share files with other people and/or web sites.
Google and OneDrive are far more generous with their storage space but personally I use only a tiny amount of it particularly because it is not my back up method.
I know a lot of you go into convulsions at the mention of “The Cloud” but there are are times it is quite useful. Do you use them for any reason?
They may be useful to some but to others they are simply not necessary and their carbon footprint is enormous. That’s why offline storage is to be preferred whenever possible. I do that.
Carbon Footprint? That’s an interesting objection. I wonder what the comparison would be if everybody had a NAS at home or even a HDD plugged into their router instead.
I wonder if it is similar to the difference between buying washed or unwashed potatoes at the supermarket?
I use Google Photos as a back-up and for sharing. Having said that, my photos online are better organised and easier to find than on my computer. So the photos on my computer are the back-ups.
I get 15GB storage free and I’ve used just over half that.
I’ve started using Google Drive more, and I did use Dropbox years ago but I’ve forgotten the password now. I found it useful at the time, so I might make another account. I usually find flash drives more convenient, if I’m honest…I like having my stuff accessible “close” to me, rather than be dependent on the whims of a remote provider.
Just as a matter of interest, how are they better organised?
Previously I used to use Google for my photos via Picasa but when they changed to Google Photos and abandoned Picasa I stayed with Picasa and abandoned Google Photos. I suspect my old photos are still there but I haven’t looked.
I like the way Picasa downloads photos from the camera and stores them by date then I use Bulk Rename Utility to retitle the individual photos in the format YYYYMMDD followed by some descriptor like town name or place.
It’s confusing … there was Picasa Web Albums that became Google Photos (in the clouds). There was Picasa 3 that still is Picasa 3 as viewer organiser (down to earth).
Pics on the pc in Pictures folders, but readily viewable/scrollable in date order in Picasa3. I edit and upload to Google Photos albums with names like Hyde Park, Oxford Street, or holiday location & date. All the time I’m weeding out inferior photos, the cream in the clouds. When looking for a pic I’m looking/thinking location before date.
Google Photos has a search tool too.
Here’s an example of an album with a certain subject and all pics in date order. If I want to find more pics taken the same day, I can easily search Picasa3 by date.
Yep, that is what I still use (Picasa 3), I think you are right they were called Picasa Web Albums and those of mine are still there but I don’t use Google Pictures as I said.
What I like about Picasa is, as you said, it is very simple and you can search on comments too though personally I rarely use them. The only problem with it is that it is 32bit and presumably will eventually be impossible to run but while it does work I will keep using it.
The date feature YYMMDD plus a number and description I use for Photos and also text, spreadsheets etc because it keeps them in chronological order (in different folders) for example a photo might have the name:
220421 001 Lake George.jpg
220421 002 Lake George.jpg
etc
It works well for all files and Bulk Rename Utility does most of that automatically (wonderful program and free)
