How to upload photos from iPad to Google Drive?

Shreyas Patil
Shreyas PatilUpdated :
How to upload photos from iPad to Google Drive?

Uploading photos from your iPad to Google Drive is a great way to back up your images and access them from any device. With Google Drive, your photos are stored securely in the cloud so you don't have to worry about running out of space on your iPad.

In this guide, we'll walk through the steps to upload photos from your iPad to Google Drive using the Google Photos app. We'll cover how to upload new photos automatically, upload existing photos manually, create albums, and access your photos once they're in Google Drive. Let's get started!


Prerequisites for Uploading Photos to Google Drive

Before uploading your photos, make sure you have the following:

  • An iPad device running iOS 11 or later
  • The latest version of the Google Photos app installed
  • A Google account
  • An internet connection (WiFi or mobile data)

The Google Photos app is available as a free download from the App Store. You'll need to sign into the app using your Google account credentials.


Enable Auto Backup in Google Photos

The easiest way to get your photos into Google Drive is to enable auto backup in the Google Photos app. Here's how:

Open Google Photos and Sign In

Launch the Google Photos app and sign in with your Google Account if prompted.

Go to Settings

Tap on your profile icon in the top right corner and select Settings from the menu.

Turn on Backup & Sync

Under the Back up & sync section, turn on the switch for Back up & sync.

Choose Upload Quality

Select whether you want to upload in Original quality or Storage saver. Original will upload full resolution photos while storage saver scales them down to save space.

Enable Cellular Data Usage

If you want photos to upload when you aren't on WiFi, turn on Cellular data usage in Settings. Otherwise, leave this off to only upload on WiFi.

Once enabled, the Google Photos app will automatically back up new photos and videos from your iPad's camera roll to Google Drive in the background.


Manually Upload Photos to Google Drive

If you already have photos on your iPad that you want to upload, you can manually select images and upload them to Google Drive:

Open the Photos App

Launch the Photos app on your iPad and navigate to the photos you want to upload. You can select individual photos or open a full album.

Tap Select

Tap the Select button at the top right to begin selecting photos.

Choose Photos

Tap on each photo you want to upload to Google Drive to select it. Selected photos will have a blue checkmark.

Tap the Share Icon

Once you've selected your photos, tap the share icon at the bottom (a box with an arrow pointing up).

Choose Google Photos

In the share sheet, select Google Photos to upload the images.

Upload to an Album (Optional)

If prompted, choose a specific Google Photos album to add the images to. Otherwise, they will upload to the main Google Photos view.

The selected photos will now upload to Google Drive at full resolution. You can view the upload progress for each image.


Create and Manage Albums in Google Photos

To keep your Google Drive photos organized, you can create albums right in the Google Photos app:

Tap the Plus (+) Icon

Tap the plus (+) icon at the top right and select Album to create a new empty album.

Name the Album

Enter a name for your new album and tap Create.

Add Photos

Open the album, tap Add photos, and select images to populate the album.

Edit & Delete Albums

Tap and hold an album to access options to edit the name or delete the album.

Albums make it easy to organize and group related photos for sharing or searching.


Access Your Uploaded Photos on Google Drive

Once your photos are safely backed up to Google Drive, there are a few ways to access them across your devices:

  • Google Photos App: Open the Google Photos app on your phone, tablet or computer to view your synced photos. Photos will stay organized in any albums you create.
  • Google Drive App: Open the Google Drive app. Your Google Photos are located in the Backup folder.
  • Google Photos Website: Visit photos.google.com to access your Google Drive photos from any web browser.

    Open Google Photos

  • Google Drive Website: Go to drive.google.com and look in the Backup folder for your Google Photos content.

    Open Google Drive on your computer

  • Search: You can search for specific photos, people, places, or things across Google Drive and Photos using Google's powerful search capabilities.

So with just a few taps, you can securely upload all your iPad's photos to Google Drive for safe keeping and easy access on any device.


Quick Tip to ensure your videos never go missing

Videos are precious memories and all of us never want to ever lose them to hard disk crashes or missing drives. PicBackMan is the easiest and simplest way to keep your videos safely backed up in one or more online accounts. 

Simply Download PicBackMan (it's free!), register your account, connect to your online store and tell PicBackMan where your videos are - PicBackMan does the rest, automatically. It bulk uploads all videos and keeps looking for new ones and uploads those too. You don't have to ever touch it.


Conclusion

Uploading photos from your iPad to Google Drive is incredibly simple with the Google Photos app. By enabling auto-backup, you can effortlessly store your entire camera roll collection on Google Drive for safe keeping and access on all your devices.

Manually transferring selected photos is also easy for moving your existing iPad albums over to Google storage. And creating Google Photos albums lets you organize your photos into searchable collections.

So free up space on your iPad, back up irreplaceable photos, and enjoy anytime access to your Google Photos library from any device. With large free storage tiers and apps for all platforms, Google Drive is the ideal home for your prized photo collection.

World's #1 Photo/Video Uploader

Backup & Transfer your Photos in Minutes

Automate backup & migration of your photos & videos with support for all top services.

(283 reviews)

Trusted by users in 125+ countries.

95,000+ PicBackMan Users

95,000+ Users Trust PicBackMan To Backup Precious Memories

money back guarantee
Kip Roof testimonial Kip Roofgoogle photos flickr
PicBackMan does exactly what it's supposed to. It's quick and efficient. It runs unobtrusively in the background and has done an excellent job of uploading more than 300GB of photos to 2 different services. After having lost a lot of personal memories to a hard drive crash, it's nice to know that my photos are safe in 2 different places.
Julia Alyea Farella testimonialJulia Alyea Farella smugmug
LOVE this program! Works better than ANY other program out there that I have found to upload thousands of pictures WITH SUB-FOLDERS to SmugMug! Thank you so much for what you do! :) #happycustomer
Pausing Motion testimonialPausingMotionsmugmug
I pointed PicBackMan at a directory structure, and next time I looked - all the photos had uploaded! Pretty cool. I use SmugMug and while I really like it, the process of creating directories in is pretty laborious when you need to make 80+ at a time. This was a breeze. Thank you!
Gavin Whitham testimonialGavin Whithamflickr
PicBackMan was really easy to setup and has been running for 3 days now backing up all my locally saved photos to Flickr. My photos are really valuable to me so it's great to be able to have them easily backed up to a secure location.
 Jim Griffin testimonialJim Griffinsmugmug
It's AWESOME!! I have tens of thousands of pictures...and they are now successfully uploaded to SmugMug, where they are safely backed up, and I can edit and organize them. If you are hesitating about using PicBackMan, hesitate no longer...try it...and you'll be glad you did!!
close icon
World's #1 Photo/Video Uploader

World's #1 Free Photo/Video Uploader

PicBackMan has everything you've ever wanted to backup your photos or migrate/transfer from one account to another. No feature left behind!

(283 reviews)
Trusted by users in 125+ countries.
  • Maintain Folder StructureMaintain Folder StructureUpload to your online accounts & keep your folder structure as you have it.
  • Sub-folder SupportFolders & their sub-folders are automatically picked up.
  • Smart De-dupeDe-dupes photos before uploading so you don’t have duplicate copies.
  • AutomaticPicBackMan monitors & automatically uploads from connected folders.
  • PrivacyPrivacyAll uploaded photos & videos are always marked as private by default.
  • RAW FilesComes with support for RAW files for uploads as well as transfers.

“Your pictures are scattered. PicBackMan helps you bring order to your digital memories.”

the wall street journal
close icon
One Uploader for All Services

One Uploader for All Services

PicBackMan is the only tool you will need to backup to one or more of the top online photo and video services.

(283 reviews)
Trusted by users in 125+ countries.
Google Photos

Google Photos

Flickr

Flickr

SmugMug

SmugMug

Dropbox

Dropbox

Google Drive

Google Drive

pCloud

pCloud

OneDrive

OneDrive

youtube

Youtube