Like most people, I take a lot of pictures with my smartphone. Getting pictures into your phone is easy. But finding and sharing them can be a challenge.
Fortunately, both Google and Apple have some pretty powerful tools to help you find images even if you don’t remember exactly when you took them.
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I store my photos in Google Photos, but the searching technique works about the same if you use Apple Photos. In both cases, you can search for photos on your phone or on any web enabled device, including PCs and Macs. In fact, I was even able to access my iPhone photos from my Windows PC by logging into iCloud and was able to import photos from my Android device into my iPhone by locating them using Google Photos and importing them via iCloud
Both Google and Apple have robust search tools that depend, in part, on what they have learned from your photos. Google’s ability to locate photos by name is uncanny. It would be bordering on creepy if it weren’t so useful. It’s not perfect, but I can use it to find members of my family just by entering their first name. It can also find pictures based on meta data that can include the name of the original file, the date or the location where it was taken. And it can identify objects or animals within the pictures. Both Google and Apple also use facial recognition and AI tools to recognize and categorize your photos.
I was feeling nostalgic for our departed pets, so I used Google Photos to search for “dogs and cats” and it turned up the few pictures I have with both a dog and a cat. Then I separately searched for “dogs” and found multiple photos of our dogs. The same with cats. I was looking for pictures from past Christmases and a search for “Christmas” turned up many of them, even though I didn’t specify a date. It even found pictures taken during another day in the Christmas season based on decorations in the background. You can also find pictures of people together. If I search for “Larry and Patti” I get pictures of my wife and me.
It’s a great way to locate vacation photos based on where you were or what you were seeing. A search for “lake” can find pictures of lakes, including people next to a lake. Search for Paris, or Bakersfield, and you’ll find photos taken in or near those cities. I was kind of joking about Bakersfield, but when I searched for it, I found a picture of my wife and me having dinner at one of the city’s more famous Basque restaurants. It is a nice memory.
Uploading old pictures and recalling old memories
iCloud will automatically upload pictures you take with an iPhone as will Google Photos with pictures taken from an Android, but both can also be used to manually upload photos stored on a PC or a Mac. These days, most of my pictures are taken with a phone, but I have a lot that were taken with old digital cameras and some that were scanned in from printed photos. All are now online, and most are easily found by search even if they were taken decades ago.
What’s amazing about this is how easy it is to start reminiscing about past times. As I work on this column, I’m delayed, because while trying out different search terms and dates, I found pictures that brought back memories from past trips and family events including pictures of people and pets that are no longer with us.
Other photo backup systems
If you don’t want to use Apple’s or Google’s backup system or you want a redundant system, you can also backup with Amazon Photos, Microsoft OneDrive and Dropbox. If you subscribe to Amazon Prime, you get unlimited photo backups and up to 5 GB of video. You can access your photos on your phone or on the web. I hadn’t used Amazon Photos in a while, but I did as I wrote this story and was delighted that it showed me pictures from this day, going back years. It happens to be my wife’s birthday.
A word of caution
Be aware of any photos that may be sensitive. In 2022, there was a case of a Bay Area politician who dropped out of a race after it was revealed that he had uploaded semi-nude pictures of himself and his wife to Dropbox and later shared that Dropbox folder with a campaign staff member who said they suffered “emotional and mental anguish.” The candidate reportedly said those pictures were accidentally mingled with images that he wanted the staffer to consider for use in the campaign. And always make sure you have robust passwords and other protections against unauthorized access.
Revisiting where you’ve been
In addition to finding photos, you can also revisit places you’ve been if you use Google or Apple Maps. Until a few months ago, your entire Google Maps history was available online, but Google is no longer letting you access your timeline on the web. You can, however, view places you’ve been on your Google Maps smartphone app by clicking on your picture and selecting “Your Timeline.” From there, you can review your trip, places you’ve been and cities. If you traveled outside the US, you can click on “world” to see a breakdown by country. By default, the data is only stored on your device, but if you want a permanent record that will remain even after you’re no longer using your current phone, make sure you’ve turned on backup.
Happy memories.
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Larry Magid is a tech journalist and internet safety activist. Contact him at larry@larrymagid.com.
