Google Photos will get rid of its gratis storage tier starting June 1, which is when the visitor volition flip a switch and any new image uploaded will count confronting your Google account storage. While we argue that Photos will still exist well worth the money, many people are starting to look for better or cheaper alternatives, and Microsoft OneDrive could be ane. After all, Microsoft provides its office apps with 1TB of storage at an attractive cost. But the question is: Does it come close to Photos in whatever capacity?

THE Adept

Storage quota The default subscription's 1TB of storage should last yous a looong time.
Whiteboard/document scanning Makes information technology easy to add receipts and notes right to your gallery.
Google Bandage support Microsoft recently added support for Chromecast.
Granular sharing options Expiry dates, specific contacts, and password protected links are bachelor.

THE Not And then Practiced

No dedicated gallery app Your photos alive inside the OneDrive file manager app.
No intelligent search Search only relies on file names, forcing you to meticulously organize your library.
No image editing You demand to export images to some other app and re-upload.
No live albums You need to manage your albums manually.

Pricing

OneDrive offers upward to 5GB of storage for complimentary, which is 10GB less than what Google provides. There'due south also a $2/calendar month pick that gives you lot 100GB, but things become more interesting in the more expensive tiers. When you pay $seventy a year (or $7 per month) yous become access to Microsoft 365 Personal, which consists of 1TB of cloud storage, hour of costless landline/mobile Skype calls, and access to Microsoft Part apps on all platforms. The plan as well enables some avant-garde sharing features like expiring or countersign-protected links. Alternatively, you lot tin can share a $100/year ($10/month) subscription with up to six people, costing each individual about $16.50 a year if costs are shared as.

The pricing is on par with Photos, at to the lowest degree if you solely look at storage price for individuals. Google also offers 100GB for $2 a month or 200GB for $iii (with an option to share information technology with your family unit), and its $100/year ($10/month) plan fifty-fifty gives y'all up to 2TB of storage for all your Google files and access to a VPN. However, Google can't compare to Microsoft's family sharing program that gives six persons access to 1TB each at finer $16.50 a year.

Thus, OneDrive might be a viable alternative if yous already pay for Microsoft 365 for access to Office and/or if y'all have friends or family to share the subscription costs with.

Library

The OneDrive photo library is accessible in the lesser bar of the main OneDrive app — Microsoft doesn't offer a dedicated awarding but for your photos. By default, the app shows you all images you lot've saved to your OneDrive, but you tin use a filter to only testify images in your Pictures folder — that's also where your photographic camera roll is being uploaded to. Up top, you lot can see "On this 24-hour interval" highlights from the past. Unfortunately, there's no way to filter for photos from your phone merely, and then you'll need to remove other images from your Pictures binder if you don't want them to bear witness upwards in the chronological overview.

Higher up: OneDrive. Below: Google Photos.

OneDrive patently also automatically tags images with a few generic denominations like #city, #landscape, #animal, and more. These are supposed to help with search, but that seems to be specific to some regions simply, like the Usa. For me in Deutschland, OneDrive's search just lets me find file names, making it useless compared to Google Photos' excellent epitome recognition that helps surface most anything you've e'er photographed. At least the OneDrive spider web view lets you lot see images grouped past place, just you can't access this locations section in the mobile app.

Timeline navigation is surprisingly solid, though. Like Google Photos, yous can quickly move to other dates by belongings and sliding the scrolling indicator on the right of the screen, and you can pinch to zoom in and out right in the timeline to see more or fewer images at the aforementioned time. It'southward even possible to concur and drag on height of a photograph to select multiple at the same fourth dimension.

In a tab at the top of the UI, you can access an anthology department automatically populated with a few engagement-based albums, but you tin can besides create your own. Since OneDrive search is pretty lackluster, you might feel obligated to create a few manual albums to observe pictures from contempo trips or events more easily. You could even cull to organize your images in good onetime folders alternatively, since OneDrive is essentially nothing merely a hard drive in the cloud.

OneDrive does come in handy when you make pictures of whiteboards or documents, though. It allows you to specify what kind of object you're photographing and automatically crops information technology down to the correct size.

Microsoft also offers more secure sharing options. You can send expiring or countersign-protected links and specify who you lot want to share an anthology with. Unfortunately, there'southward no live album option like Photos offers, a characteristic that automatically adds new images from certain people to specified albums as you take them.

In contrast to Google Photos, OneDrive doesn't have an option to upload images in a slightly lower quality to salvage storage and bandwidth.

Editing

OneDrive straight up doesn't have any native editing tools on board, save for a rotate option in the spider web app — its biggest shortcoming compared to competitors. On Android and Chrome Os, you lot'll have to open the prototype in another app and and so reupload the new version. If you employ the OneDrive syncing customer on Windows or macOS, things might not be as bad since yous can just open up the app in your preferred desktop editor, but you're left without luck when yous want to edit on the go.

Third-party integrations

OneDrive recently introduced support for Google Cast, allowing y'all to send your photos and videos to the big screen. Alternatively, you lot can use your Xbox to access OneDrive files.

Naturally, Microsoft yet won't integrate as nicely with your Nest Hub and Chromecast equally Google Photos. You can't use OneDrive as a source for your Chromecast and Nest Hub groundwork images, and you tin can't use the Google Assistant to search through your library by voice.

Verdict

Let'southward confront it — OneDrive is only a corking solution for a minor subset of people who don't want fancy image recognition search or editing tools. It's definitely not worth spending $seventy a yr on the service if you but use it to salvage your images. But if you're paying for the Microsoft 365 subscription already and have a lot of space to spare on your OneDrive, you might too brand good use of it and back up your images to it. Only don't look Microsoft to give y'all anything across storage space.

You'll exist much better off with Amazon Photos (if y'all're a Prime number subscriber) or by staying with Google Photos in the kickoff identify — afterward all, it's a bully tool not just considering it'south complimentary but as well considering it'southward got the characteristic set to beat.

About The Writer

Manuel Vonau (1636 Manufactures Published)

Manuel is a tech enthusiast and Android fan based in Berlin. When he'due south not writing articles for Android Law, he's probably out and about as a videographer.

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