As parents and Google Photos users we use a number of features and strategies to ensure our photos are safe, easy to share with family, and protected from disasters. This article will walk through our strategies for parents and kids using Google Photos.
Essential Features
If you are new to Google Photos there are a few key features that work great for families:
Protect Photos from Little Fingers with Kid Google Accounts
Kids love looking at photos of themselves and the family. However, handing your kid your laptop or phone can easily lead to accidental photo deletion or photos forwarded to your boss!
To keep your photos safe setup a Google account for each child; the signup process is quick and easy. Then the parents can share the family photo albums and live albums with the kid's Google accounts.
We configure our devices to ensure the kid only uses their own account in these ways:
Android and ChromeOS: use separate user profiles on Android (Settings -> Multipe Users) and ChromeOS (Login -> Add Person) and log the kids into their accounts. Note: if you create a "Family Link" account for your children you can't use the Android multiple user feature; so we don't use that feature.
iOS and iPadOS: we dedicate Firefox or Chrome browsers as the "kids browser" and log that broswer into the kids Google account; then we pin the browser app using Guided Access so the kid can't escape and make calls or send emails.
macOS and Windows: the kids have dedicated user accounts where they can make whatever mess they want.
Separate Shared Albums for Family and Friends
Our family has a handful of separate galleries we share with different audiences. Your best friend might want to see every cute photo you have taken- even if that means sorting through dozens of photos per day. But, your cousins might only be interested in seeing major highlights a few times a month.
With the kids logged into their own account a parent will periodically add shared album photos to the kids collection by click the “Save Photos” button in Google Photos. This makes it easier for them to find their favorite photos.
Backups: Lots of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe
Backups are essential to safeguard the precious family memories stored in Google Photos. With Clone Camel you can easily backup your Google Photos to an SD card that is mailed to your home. Use coupon code CCBLOG02 for 10% on your first order.
For more Google Photos backup strategies see our earlier blog post.
Conclusion
Google Photos offers a ton of features that can be used together to create a great family workflow. We hope this article helped to inspire your creative use of these tools.
Have more ideas? We would love to hear about them, email support@clonecamel.com.
