I can't upload photos from Google Drive with the Workspace Business standard subscription

[free-paid]

Hi,

I want to know why I can't upload photos from the drive in google photos with my business subscription while I can with the free version, is there any option in the admin console to unlock ?

In the first screenshot the menu item is missing (paid Workspace Business Standard), in the second the menu item is here (free gmail).

I don't see options to authorise this action in admin console, so it seems that this feature is not implemented...

[icrew · Accepted solution]

You are correct. It’s a documented limitation (for reasons that are totally unclear). Quoting from the support article at https://support.google.com/photos/answer/6156103 :

“If you use a Google Account through work or school, you’ll have to download from Google Drive and re-upload to Google Photos.”

That said, it may actually be a good thing, as Google Photos is a non-core app, with no administrative controls, so using it for work purposes is probably not a good idea. See my post over at  https://www.googlecloudcommunity.com/gc/Workspace-Q-A/Google-Photos-quota-and-having-it-both-ways/td... for more on that. 

Hope that helps,

Ian

[free-paid]

That may be logic at google level, but as a business owner that may not be... photos can be as important assets as spreadsheets or other documents... administrative controls should be added to google photos. Think a real estate agent that deals with a lot of photos for example...

[leejuyoung]

I also agree with this point. I upgraded to the paid business version to make more use of Google Photos, but I ended up not being able to import photos from Google Drive.

This is very disappointing.

[icrew]

Another point I forgot to mention in my original post: as a non-core app, Google also doesn’t provide any support for Photos, meaning that you can’t get any help from them if anything goes wrong with it, nor does it carry the same data protection and availability terms for core apps covered by the Workspace contract. So that’s another couple of reasons not to depend on Photos for anything important related to your business.

[leejuyoung]

As long as Google Photos exists, I believe updates on app compatibility are inevitable. I do not agree with the rationale behind differentiating the features between Google Workspace and Google One.

I signed up for a trial of Google Workspace yesterday, but I'm now contemplating whether I should switch my main cloud storage elsewhere.

Google Cloud offers great features from spreadsheets to AppSheet, but the idea of filling up 2TB of storage with just these documents is disheartening.

[leejuyoung]

In fact, I have primarily used a cloud service called Naver MYBOX. The reason is that it can be managed just like a separate storage, making it easy to manage storage space, and above all, it is intuitive and well-organized, especially for categorizing photos, so I have been using it well.

However, despite wanting to switch my main cloud to Google due to its other excellent app services, I don't quite understand the concept of Google Photos.

The key differences are as follows:

MY BOX: Within the cloud, files, photos, and videos can be uploaded in bulk, and it automatically categorizes photos, videos, and documents.

GOOGLE PHOTO: It seems that the cloud and photos need to be managed separately, with files in Google Drive and photos in Google Photos.

(I might not be utilizing Google's services well, but I think a downside is that you need to download several Google apps to make use of Google Cloud services.)