If you have Amazon Prime, you have several services at your disposal that you probably have never used. For example, did you know that in addition to Amazon Prime Video, you also have extras on the game streaming service Twitch? Did you know that in addition to better shipping options on Amazon.nl, you can also store unlimited photos for free? For the latter, you use Amazon Photos.
If you're using an iPhone, you'll likely use iCloud to store and back up your photos and videos. Android users will likely use Google Photos or Google Drive for this. However, this sometimes has restrictions, so that you have to pay money for more storage, for example. Amazon offers to back up your photos and videos for free and store them as they were originally. In this way they retain their 'form' and their content.
You can have the application save new photos in Amazon Photos by default, but you can also choose to do that manually. For example, you can create folders and use photos there yourself, so that it does not become one large repository of photos. The handy thing about saving (or actually backing up) photos on Amazon Photos, is that you can use it to log in to your laptop, for example, to view your photos that have been put in that 'bin' or folders from your smartphone. The Amazon Photos app can also be downloaded on various smart TVs, so you can immediately view your photos and videos in your living room or bedroom.
How does Amazon Photos work?
If you have an Amazon Prime account (cost: 3 euros per month), you can download the Amazon Photos app, log in and the rest will take care of itself. Perhaps a little too automatically, because the app immediately starts backing up your photos on your phone after logging in. Fortunately, you can turn that off, so that you can first clean up your photos yourself or think of what you want with the app in another way. You also quickly understand what the options are, because the app is simple and clear. In addition, you have unlimited space, so you don't have to worry that if you let that automatic backup take place, the account will be full at some point.
Incidentally, that is not entirely true: you get unlimited options to store photos, but a maximum of 5GB applies to videos and other files. If you do need more, then you are considerably cheaper at Amazon than at the competition: for 19.99 euros per year you have 100GB extra storage or for 100 euros per year 1TB. You can upload files in jpeg, png, raw, bmp, tif, mp4, mov and more format.
Share photos with Amazon Photos
You can share your photos with up to six people via the Family Archive. That is a separate section where you can share photos with friends and family. Add people to this and they immediately have the same Amazon Photos privileges as you do with Aa. Amazon has also added artificial intelligence to the app, so that you can search for 'dog' and the system automatically shows all kinds of photos where a dog is standing. Nothing new under the sun in itself, because Google and Apple also do this, but it is very handy that it is included.
The same goes for memories: Amazon Photos also shows you memories and dates when photos were shot. There is also a basic photo editing program hidden in Amazon Photos. This allows you to make some simple adjustments.
Good perk of Amazon Prime
Amazon Photos is a nice perk of the Amazon Prime subscription and it can save you a lot of money that you now pay Apple or Google monthly for storing photos. Especially now that telephone cameras are getting so good and each photo is a few MB in size. Plus, Amazon is pretty lenient: if you miss your payments from Amazon Prime, you'll be told a specific deadline of when to download your files before they're removed from Amazon Photos.
Amazon Photos is available on the desktop, but also on smart TVs and your smartphone. If you log in everywhere with the same account, you have access to your photos everywhere. It may take some time to get everything into folders and organize it exactly the way you want, but it can save you a lot of money on cloud storage services, especially if you really only store photos. In addition, you have Amazon Prime, which comes with various nice extras.
