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Is "Unlimited photo/video in Original quality" valid for all devices and media?

Is "Unlimited photo/video in Original quality" valid for all devices and media?
In the Backup portion of the Google Photos app it states "Photos and videos uploaded from your PIxel before 2021-01-16 get unlimited free storage at Original quality"
How about photos/video that weren't created on the Pixel 2's hardware? I'm thinking of things like raw .ARW photos or video taken from my Sony RX100. I haven't yet tried it on the phone but the raw .ARW files upload to Google Photos via the Backup and Sync From Google software on Windows so they may as well on android.

mentalfloss said:
In the Backup portion of the Google Photos app it states "Photos and videos uploaded from your PIxel before 2021-01-16 get unlimited free storage at Original quality"
How about photos/video that weren't created on the Pixel 2's hardware? I'm thinking of things like raw .ARW photos or video taken from my Sony RX100. I haven't yet tried it on the phone but the raw .ARW files upload to Google Photos via the Backup and Sync From Google software on Windows so they may as well on android.
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Photos and Videos taken with Pixel phones can upload at original quality. I have tried using other phones, but all I got is backup at high quality. I don't see much difference except the file size on Pixel photo/video backup is bigger.
Now, if you use Windows PC and try to upload a photo/video file, then there are 2 choices(High Quality or Original quality), but you need to set it in the Google Photos settings(default I believe is High Quality)

It appears to me that everything backed up by the photos app goes at original quality. I had not previously used the auto backup feature on my nexus, so when I transitioned all my files to the pixel 2 I let it go wild and it uploaded all my transferred files.

But do the Nexus files take up Google account storage space?
I'm trying to take advantage of the store-everything-as-Original option the Pixel 2 offers, so I'm trying to find out if media is evaluated as "Produced By A Pixel 2" so it falls under that.
Are the photos created on your Nexus -- but uploaded from the Pixel 2 -- counting towards your Google storage or are they exempted from storage use by falling under the Pixel 2's "store unlimited Original photos/videos" grace? I know I can do it all under High Quality, but I'd like to do it as Original and take advantage of unlimited storage option I have by using the Pixel 2 .

mentalfloss said:
I'm trying to take advantage of the store-everything-as-Original option the Pixel 2 offers, so I'm trying to find out if media is evaluated as "Produced By A Pixel 2" so it falls under that.
Are the photos created on your Nexus -- but uploaded from the Pixel 2 -- counting towards your Google storage or are they exempted from storage use by falling under the Pixel 2's "store unlimited Original photos/videos" grace? I know I can do it all under High Quality, but I'd like to do it as Original and take advantage of unlimited storage option I have by using the Pixel 2 .
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I think it's any picture files -- video I imagine they might do more detection or you could potentially backup whole seasons and series worth of episodes and movies... -- simply uploaded from the pixel 2/XL falls under the unlimited original quality photos/videos. I purposefully downloaded all pictures taking up space in my Google Drive, as well as the photos I've accumulated over the years, and input it in my phone; had Google Photos (stock app) "back[it]up", and checked to see if any space was being taken up in my Google Drive...and it was not! I've actually "converted" folders and gigabytes of photos taking up physical space on my devices taking advantage of this feature. Once I saw a hint that Google Photos didn't really discriminate what photos was being backed up, I definitely wanted to test and take advantage if it were possible.
Hope this helps...

Hey cool, thanks for sharing that! I'll have to test it more myself (like with raw .ARW images, which aren't something the Pixel 2 would produce) and see if it'll handle those the same way as .jpg images.

photos from google photos are missing! please help!

So i just came back from a holiday in Japan. As i am using a google pixel, my stored photos automatically goes to the google photos app. but the app is not synced on the cloud (meaning i never signed in with google photos) as i don't intend to use it as a cloud storage, but just a normal stock photo storage on my phone.
So after the trip, i created a new album and sorted out the best photos out of the trip and put it there. I named it "for profile pics photos"
Now, the storage memory is getting full, so i moved the photos from the camera folder to my harddrive through Solid file explorer, but i didn't touch the "for profile pics photos" album.)
When i checked the google photos app, the "for profile pics photos" album is gone! i was shocked and i was looking for the specific photos everywhere. it's gone. My best pics from the trip is gone! i am so pissed.
I double checked in the harddrive if the photos got transferred there but it wasn't. it just got lost!
I also checked the trash in the google photos, it's also not there!
How can i retrieve those photos? why is google photos like this. is this a common problem for a google phone?

Just for what it's worth and because no one has replied yet, I haven't had this problem but I only don't use Photos' backup option on my non-Pixel devices. On my Pixel devices, I use the free full quality backup. On my non-Pixel devices, although I use Photos as a gallery app, I use Mega with its free 50 GB of cloud storage to backup my pictures and videos. It's not as seamless as with Photos.
I should also add I haven't done the exact steps you have on a phone where Photos isn't set to backup automatically.

Change default location for Camera to store pics

Device: Huawei P30 Pro
OS: Android 9
Hello there - Is it possible for us to change the default location where the camera stores pictures and videos? More specifically, is it possible to directly store the pics and videos taken by the camera on a NAS drive location instead of the internal storage?!
If yes, can someone guide me on how this can be done.
Many thanks in advance.
Best,
JT

Google Photos resolution problem

Hey guys, I have a weird problem with some photos that come out of the stock camera app. When I look at them on the stock gallery app it shows as a normal 16 MP photo. However, when I look at it on a google photos app it shows only as a 0,7 MP photo. These photos also upload to the Google photos cloud as 0,7 MP which is unusable. Have you experienced any similar stuff?

Isn't that normal if you want unlimited free photo storage on Google photos?

hackdrag0n said:
Isn't that normal if you want unlimited free photo storage on Google photos?
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Hm, no. Google Photos offers free unlimited storage up to 16MP normally. So it shouldn't do that..
Also that's only for content uploaded to the Google Photos cloud. He should still be able to see the full resolution in the app if he kept the original photo.

Just a quick disclaimer, I am able to see full resolution photos in stock gallery app, not the Google photos app. And it does not happen to the pics I take with GCam, they are being backed up correctly.

thats not the case for me
if i make a photo on stock cam and its displayed as 3-5MB in Google Photos

If i take the photo with 64mp camera it uploads as 0.7 but if i just use the "photo" option on camera app it uploads it as 16.1mp

Does the pixel upload 4K videos?

Hi everyone, I know The Pixel doesn't record 4K videos, but I use my OG pixel now for backing up photos and videos only. I copy all of my photos and videos from my new device to the OG pixel to upload to Google photos for unlimited high quality storage. Recently I've noticed that when I shoot 4K videos in a copies to my OG pixel it doesn't upload the videos to Google photos. I would have to go on the phone and manually upload it to Google photos. It's still doesn't count towards my storage but I have to do it manually every time. Is this something that Google just put in place on the photos app to to not allow the OG pixel to upload 4K videos or was it always like this?

My s20 4k videos upload just fine through my pixel xl, as soon as i copy them to the pixel and open them in photos they start being uploaded. Can't believe i found one for only $20

it uploads 4k, but since it's such an old phone i'm guessing it just takes a while for it to chew through it. i share screen recordings to mine, and it takes a while for it to show up after downloading it from my pixel 6p. it does eventually upload though.
how are you both copying your stuff to your old pixel 1? i'm just using nearby share once/day. @peachpuff $20?? i paid 100 for mine on swappa! I was bummed that i had to get another one, my original one probably has a dead motherboard

@biglo what folder are the videos being copied to, and is it set to automatically upload from that folder? check your settings

asj0422 said:
how are you both copying your stuff to your old pixel 1? i'm just using nearby share once/day. @peachpuff $20?? i paid 100 for mine on swappa! I was bummed that i had to get another one, my original one probably has a dead motherboard
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I just copy through usb, but I'll try nearby share next time. Yup $20, and it was in perfect condition too.

asj0422 said:
@biglo what folder are the videos being copied to, and is it set to automatically upload from that folder? check your settings
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I was able to sort it out. Turns out it was a user error on my end. I changed my device name and the Synology Photos app created a new path on my NAS that wasn't being uploaded. Thanks for your help!

I use SyncThing to copy photos from the PC to the Pixel - which then uploads it. You can also sync other phones camera folders to the pixel. The one thing that isn't perfect is, that the pixel can't just pull all photos from a network folder.
I'm a little concerned that copying and deleting the pixels storage over and over causes stress on the memory and lowers the longevity of the device.

lucker#1 said:
I use SyncThing to copy photos from the PC to the Pixel - which then uploads it. You can also sync other phones camera folders to the pixel. The one thing that isn't perfect is, that the pixel can't just pull all photos from a network folder.
I'm a little concerned that copying and deleting the pixels storage over and over causes stress on the memory and lowers the longevity of the device.
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I figure the battery would go before the flash storage module does. That, or Google writes the GPhotos app to no longer work with Android 10.