Using Google Photos/Albums with Memories Gallery
Just found out that Memories can directly access Google Photos (where I have more than 1 TB of media). Excited, I tested it out. Here are the issues that I am finding and wondering if someone has tips:
- When first setting up a new Folder in the Gallery, I can add photos and click on the Google Photos link. That prompts me for my Google account and works fine. But once it connects, it only shows the first 10-11 albums in the Google Photos account. I have a LOT more. And the first ones FamilySearch shows are the first ones that Google Photos shows. Can I access all the Google Albums?
- Does FamilySearch "refresh" if I change the Google Photos Albums? I tried with a new Google account that only had one album. FamilySearch showed that one album. But when I added a 2nd album, the 2nd album is not showing up (even after an hour wait). So then that gets me to the next issue.
- How do we "reset" the connection between FamilySearch and Google Photos, e.g., break the connection or force FamilySearch to reask which Google account I want to use? Somehow I did it once, but cannot replicate. I have tried deleting all albums in FamilySearch Memories. I went to my FamilySearch account and Connections, but that's not for the photos connections.
So bottom line, how can we more effectively manage the Google Photos albums and Google accounts from FamilySearch, please?
Answers
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@Paul Masters
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Paul
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That piece of information that "... Memories can directly access Google Photos ..." makes me concerned.
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Were you aware of the following:
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As advised by "FamilySearch", in the relevant "Knowledge Article":
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Quote:
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Remember that all memories are publicly viewable, including those attached to living people. They can be shared through linking, social media, and e-mail. They can be found through a topic tag search and may be findable in more ways in the future.
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Please do not submit photographs of living except your own minor children, without their consent.
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Can I add memories about my living relatives to Family Tree?
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And,
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Quote:
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Before you share any memories about living people, you should understand that all memories—even those with living people in them—are publicly viewable and potentially findable:
• They can be shared through linking, social media, and e-mail.
• They can be found through a topic tag search in FamilySearch Memories.
• They may be found using Google and other search engines.
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In the future, memories may be findable in even more ways.
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Who can view the items uploaded to Memories?
https://www.familysearch.org/help/salesforce/viewArticle?urlname=Who-can-see-my-photos&lang=en_US
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My concern is the use of "Memories" should be 'tempered', when it comes to "Living" individuals/persons, in "Family Tree" of "FamilySearch", that we have in our "Private Spaces".
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NOTHING is Safe; nor, Sacred.
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I am not trying to be an 'alarmist'; but ...
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We need to be careful ...
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Just my thoughts.
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Brett
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ps: On the grounds of "Privacy", personally, I do not want "FamilySearch" to be able to directly access my "Google" Account (I do not use 'Cloud' or the like) nor anything such like, for that matter; and, 'visa versa'.
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Not sure if your concern is the FamilySearch ability to directly access Google Photos or what a person who uses this ability does with it.
But, yes. I presume that anything I put on FamilySearch is public. In fact, I even presume that photos I put on Google Photos and Amazon Prime are public, at the very least I lose my complete control once I post them due to the user agreements. Also, anything I sent by the internet can be copied/taken (depends how bad someone wants it, especially if not encrypted).
FamilySearch would be more public in my view because I am linking the photos to a person's ID in a family tree. And that's the point. I want people to be able to easily find this information.
So when I do mention more than 1 TB of media, I am certainly not going to try and put it all on FamilySearch. Rather, it is my attempt to explain the need to be able to effectively choose what FamilySearch is importing from Google Photos. My attempt was to create new Albums in Google Photos that would be tailored for FamilySearch. I use the facial recognition feature of Google Photos to first filter a person's pictures, then select from that (and in the case of my family, there are sometimes thousands of photos for an individual) and put those selected photos in an Album ready for FamilySearch. But because I cannot figure out how to see all the Albums in Google Photos from FamilySearch (and apparently it does not see "Shared Albums"), I would need to create new Google Photos accounts with nothing in them (shells) and then make Albums, import, delete, import, delete.
Not very efficient. Before I go through that. I'd like to know if there's a better way.
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I think what Bretts concern was that [he assumed] your photos were for living persons.
as you know Google is just a storage medium that can be used for any photos you collect - for people living or deceased. Just like any of us who collect family photos.
Generally one should use caution in uploading photos for living persons other than your self
but I assume you know that.
I have also collected and maintained thousands of photos and uploaded to FS
mine are just on my local computer and external drives.
many people are not aware that you can batch upload hundreds of photos at a time - and not just one by one.
see this write up I did about FS Albums
http://yanceyfamilygenealogy.org/familysearch.htm
also
http://yanceyfamilygenealogy.org/digital_library.htm
also see these photos and documents I have uploaded to FS
http://yanceyfamilygenealogy.org/adam_yancey_inventory.htm
http://yanceyfamilygenealogy.org/yancey_researchers.htm
(click on FS-LINKS)
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also - when you say FS Memories access Google photos
can you be a little more specifc??
Like I know, for me, that I can bring up an upload window in FS - and instead of pointing at my hard drive - I can, instead, point at a photo from my web site (using a URL) - and it picks it up just fine
in that sense FS is not really "acccessing" a folder on the internet - it is really my computer that is accessing the image on a web site - and then simply passing it on to the FS interface.
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In the same way that most people can upload an image to Familysearch - from the "window that pops up" and allows you to point it at a file on your computer. In that same way - you can do the same exact thing and instead of pointing it at your hard drive - one can/could also point it at a web address (assuming it is photos and items that you own or have legal rights to), or you can point it at other sites that are "reachable" via the access that your computer has - which could include BOX, GOOGLE, an external hard drive, a CD drive, a flash drive etc. - just about anything that is reachable via a path or url.
These are just different "storage mediums" - different people have chosen different mediums that meet their needs. FS can access many of these just about as simply as they can the traditional link to a file on your computer.
but its not like FS is granted password access to somehow peruse all your files on its own. It only accesses what you tell it to access - just like it does when you point at a file on your computer.
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First, thank you for pointing me to your detailed write ups.
I was excited to try what you advised, but it's not seeming to work for me with a URL. I believe the URL option for Choose Files only works with an address that brings up a folder with files (and virtual URL would work). But the URL for the Google Photos albums are not functional as a file folder.
I include a snip of the error below. Maybe I envisioned something different than you were thinking. I still cannot seem to find an effective way to upload from Google Photos albums (unless the number of albums is very small).
In your site, you mention uploading (and tagging!) multiple files. I could download from Google Photos and then create folders and then reupload. But I was trying to avoid the Internet hit by downloading and uploading and instead going "straight across" from site-site so I do not suck up my own Internet data by a download-upload. Waste of resources.
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so you say that it can at least access one folder.
can you not create a "transfer folder" and then move items to it and then transfer to FS and then delete from the temp folder?
but even in such cases - it makes me wonder if the transfer is still happening between Google, your computer and then passed on to FS - so I wonder if you are really saving any bandwidth.
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also - why does your screen shot seem like it is getting stuff from the browser cache folders?
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I tried opening the Google Photos Album link as a "file" rather than as a "folder" and as a result the program dumped the web cache onto the folder itself.
I tried both ways... for grins. Makes sense that it doesn't work because the Google Photos Album is not "browsable".
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So through some testing I have some info.
First, it seems that I Google Photos puts a new Album close to the top. So it can be "seen" by FamilySearch (that "sees" the top 10 or so albums), .
With that, I successfully imported the entire Album into a Gallery Album. Issue is seems you need to individually select each photo. You can select the first and then use Shift at the end to select all. Ctrl-A doesn't do it. How to select all instead of one by one?
I monitored the network traffic and it was minimal suggesting to me that FamilySearch was directly importing the photos from Google and not using my Internet.
Good.
But then, once in the Memories Album, it seems you have to individually tag all photos. I cannot "select all" and then apply a tag. Am I missing something here? I don't see a FAQ. Does the Church's IT forum (I used to regularly post there) have a group that discusses this?
Last, my sister gave me a heads up that you cannot delete photos from the Gallery as if you do then they are deleted from the Person in the Family Tree. So keep them in Albums that you never delete. Is this true?
Oh, and last. Sometimes FamilySearch reprompts you for a Google Account. I still haven't figured out what causes that (and it's necessary, apparently, to force FamilySearch to "refresh" the Google Photos Albums). Would love to understand what FamilySearch is doing behind the scenes.
And thanks for the input.
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to tag more than one item at a time - you have to go FIRST to the person you are tagging them to - and THEN select multiple items from the gallery (the opposite approach of what you were trying)
the SHIFT key click selection method - yes is the way to select a range of items.
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how many items were in the googles album?
I have found that I can copy about 100-200 items in a batch (from my hard drive)
but more than that things start to time out.
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the delete mechanism in FS is a bit "clunky"
you first have to "remove from album"
and then find the items in your general gallery - selecting "not in album"
and then you will be given the option to delete.
they are then placed in a deleted archive that gives yo access for X number of days
or you can delete from the deletion archive folder and then it will be deleted permanently.
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also note - FS has some sort of unique file detection. and for any one user - it will not load the file a second time.
this can be both bad and good.
in some rare occasion it is handy in that you dont necesarilly in all cases need to detect which files you already loaded and which not - the system will detect that on its own. and it will not abort the process if it detects duplicates.
on the bad side - if you have tons of folders. when it detects a duplicate - it doesnt tell you which folder the duplicate is in. which is kind of annoying.
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file selection:
1) HOLD down the shift key
2) select the first entry
3) select the last entry
4) all the entries in between should have been automatically selected
(same as what happens in Windows file selection)
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so . . . send me a copy of the URL of the FS album.
note that anyone can access the album form such URL
(though obviously no one but you will know the name of the album in the short term)
over the long term - people will detect the album name- by finding stuff in Memories - and then see what album it is linked to.
also note other then the URL link shared
if items are not tagged to a specific person - other users will not be able to find such photos by doing a memories FIND
also be highly aware that the compound search term process used on FS memories - does NOT WORK
for example
if you search on "YANCEY BIBLE" (leave off quotes) it will not do a boolean AND - but will do a boolean OR
if you really want to force it to do a boolean AND
the only current method is to use the "+" sign
+YANCEY +BIBLE
the above case will force the boolean AND and you will only get items with BOTH YANCEY and BIBLE
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I went to the person, then added photos from there (through the folder in the gallery). It allowed me to select multiple (in fact, the interface seems to have changed, and it now allows me to use the shift key to select all).
The photos all imported to the person's memories, but none of them are tagged. Now, the system wants me to go into each individual picture and tag each one.
What did I do wrong?
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is this a deceased person - that you can point me at? Or a living person I wont be able to see?
(Id like to take a look myself directly)
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KFL6-Q2T
Virgina Jackson
The top 50 or so photos, I just imported. I ended up tagging her one by one, and also tagged her husband, George Masters (L6QV-CC6) at the same time. The benefit of adding the photos to the person from the person location (versus tagging from the gallery) is the first tag defaulted to the person of focus (her). Then I had to type in the others.
Would be nice to be able to select multiple photos and apply a tag. Then continue. That way when importing family photos (couples) we could quickly tag everyone.
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Ok first of all - lets get definitions down.
I think we are getting confused on the term "tagging"
the process of linking a memories item - to a specific person is called TAGGING the item. when you are in an album - some items may say ADD TAG and others not. this is indicative of whether the item has been linked to a person.
Just about a month or so ago - FamilySearch - created the new option of TOPIC TAGGING - whereby a given item can be topic tagged (almost like hash tags)
This created some confusion and ambiguity when people now say TAG.
With Topic Tagging - you DO have to currently select one by one. I have voiced this concern to FS and at some point it maybe changed. BUT things change slowly at FS - dont hold your breath.
In all my previous discussions on the matter "TAGGING" always meant attaching an item to a person (which can be done in bulk - though maybe not more than 100 or so at a time)
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Thanks for taking the time to look at that. So, yes, by importing it to the person as you mentioned, all hit at once. Then the photo on import shows up with a bar across that prompts a person to "tag" the photo with the person it is already linked to. That is the "topic tagging" that you are referencing.
So seems we could "get by" by just importing and walking away (not topic tagging). So what's the most efficient way to get the photo into a person as a "memory". I'm not sure I care about "topic tagging." But if I import 10 photos of a couple that need to be added to the "memory" of each (so that a person who wants to see the photos belonging to "George" could find his pictures on his Memory link. A person wanting to see Virginia's photos would see them on her Memory link. And if the photo is of both, regardless of whom I go to, I will see that photo.
If I "topic tag" then it seems to also link to the memory so I import only once and then "topic tag" to the other people in the picture. If I don't topic tag, do I need to reimport to each person? (That would like be faster to "reimprt" from Google each time, then by tagging individually.)
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Topic Tagging is totally optional
and in limited ways can be accomplished by an ALBUM
(a single item can be placed in multiple Albums - without being duplicated)
its up to you- - just dont waste time on stuff - that has no real benefit.
(but topic tagging can indeed be beneficial)
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If you had 10 photos of 2 people, how would you do it?\
Would you import those 10 photos 2x to each person's "memory"?
Or would you import it once, and then "topic tag" it to the two people?
Any advice for efficiency?
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you will NOT be able to import twice
(you dont want to duplicate the phyisical file).
Load it once to the general gallery.
Navigate to 1st person - add memories from gallery and select all to be linked.
Navigate to 2nd person - -add memories from gallery and select all to be linked.
BUT creating an album for each person - may not be an effective approach. linking the item to each person - to a large degree nullifies the need to create a TOPIC TAG for each person.
TOPIC TAGS would normally be for subjects - not people - but that is up to you.
also note the topic tags you use can and will be picked up by other users of the system - and not just you.
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in fact if you try to load something twice - it will give you an error.
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