Manual Upload: Drag, Drop, and Done
If this is your first time ever using the service, you’ll see a blank slate like the one seen below.
You can select the “Upload Photos” button to use your operating system’s file explorer to select photos or, more conveniently, simply drag and drop photos right onto the browser pane.
Either way, you’ll see an upload meter in the lower left corner. Once it wraps up, you’re free to browse your photos.
Be prepared to be shocked at how uncannily accurate the recognition algorithms are. In a series of photos we uploaded of some neighborhood dogs at play, the algorithm tagged all dog photos as “Dog”, including photos of puppies as “Puppy”.
The Desktop App: Because Nobody’s Drag ‘n Dropping 40,000 Photos
If you have a lot of photos to upload and you’re not interested in the hassle of manually uploading them, the desktop app is the path to happiness for you. The app also allows you convert the names of the folders into album names, which is especially handy.
Simply add some test photo files (or folders) to the sync directory, and watch the uploader chug away:
It does not, by default, automatically apply the directory names you may have already applied to your photo storage system. If you wish for Prime Photo to also use your album names in addition to its default organization scheme, you’ll need to tweak your Prime Photos dashboard to do so.
Select “Albums” from the left hand navigation menu and then click on “Select Folders” at the bottom of the empty “Albums” screen.
Simply change the default folder in the preferences menu to your primary photo directory and let it churn through your vast photo archive.
The Mobile App: Uploads on the Go, Because Latte Snapshots Are Art
Backing up your massive pile of photos on your desktop computer is important, but let’s be honest: most of us are taking far more photos using our phones than with anything else. Furthermore, it just makes good sense to actively backup your smartphone photos—your phone is far more likely to get broken, lost, stolen, or dropped in a lake than your computer.
Regardless of what you choose, you’ll be greeted with your existing Prime Photo content. While the layout is different compared to the webapp, all the key items are there: albums, people tags, a search function for the “thing” tags, and a handy menu button, labeled “More”, down in the corner to get at the settings.
There in the “More” menu, you’ll find a handful of useful links, including a top level link to toggle “Auto-Save” on and off, a link to manually upload photos (if you’re manually curating your uploads), and an additional “Settings” menu.
There’s only one immediately relevant setting in the “Settings” menu you’ll need to attend to. If you want to enable the app to upload over cellular data (instead of just Wi-Fi), you can toggle that on. Otherwise, to keep your data usage down, leave it turned off in the default state.
Now that we’ve run you through how to use the web, desktop, and mobile app, you’ll be able to easily (and in two out of three of those instances, automatically) upload all your photos and enjoy unlimited Prime Photo storage.
