Wednesday, April 01, 2015

Google Drive shows Google+ Photos: It's 3/4 Baked

While I'm on the topic of Google Drive, they announced that your Google+ photos will now appear in your Google Drive (the Verge). This is one thing I've been waiting a long time for. However there is a catch.... really it is just copying the photos to a new location. They aren't the same file. 

This means that if you edit a file in the new drive folder it will sync between the web and your drive folder on your hard drive BUT it will not sync to the Google+ album.

This is what it looks like:
I took some pics on my phone and they uploaded to G+ Photos. I check in Drive and see the Google Photos folder. Yay they are in there.

Then it asks me if I want to link Google Photos to my Drive so I say "Sure". Then it copies them to my Drive folder and they sync to my computer! - I'm getting excited.

I edit one of the photos on my hard drive and save it. Then check Drive online and the saved photo was eventually synced. Okay....

Now I check Google+ for the same photos. 

Nope the edit was not made. So that confirms that the file is different and when pictures get added to Drive from Google+ and added to  Google+ from Drive (another feature they added last year) it is really just making a copy of the same picture.

So yeah it is half-baked at this point, maybe 3/4 baked but not done.

If they did sync the same photo everywhere then you could have your edited albums synced to G+ and show up on the Chromecast and be backed up on Drive.