A Quick Look
Nowadays, it’s more than essential to keep a memory of one’s entire life on a cloud drive. People store every bit of their happenings or information by managing a hard drive or a personal hard drive. Google Photos and Microsoft OneDrive are the two most famous cloud storage offerings out there. Despite providing basically the same service, the approach is fundamentally different. They enable users to store files in one place and access them from wherever an internet connection is available. Another reason for these services becoming more popular is file sharing. Skype or other email apps do not offer sending large files via email due to a set of reservations. That’s why cloud storage services are popular these days. In this blog post, we will help you determine whether Google Photos or Microsoft OneDrive deliver the same services or not.
Difference between Google Photos and Microsoft OneDrive
Let’s have a glance between the two cloud services.
Google Photos & OneDrive
Google Photos is another reliable cloud storage platform provided by Google Inc. which enables users to sync, share, store and auto segment photos and videos. People with Google accounts also have access to Google Photos. It also offers 15 GB of free cloud storage for every account. In contrast with Google Photos, Microsoft OneDrive is a complete cloud storage service. It now comes with a potential photo gallery, intelligent folders and with recently announced photo editing tools. No doubt, Microsoft OneDrive is now good enough to beat Google Photos.
But the hot issue is, does Microsoft OneDrive have what it takes to replace Google Photos as the primary tool for saving photos on Android.
Sharing and Editing Photos
Microsoft has recently added photo editing features in the OneDrive app, but the functions are limited to cropping and settings such as brightness, contrast, exposure, saturation, shadows and more. Whereas Google Photos once again earns this ride comfortably. It offers a rugged photo editing experience within the app. All the features are big, optimized for a large view at the bottom having plenty of options to choose from – Adjust, Crop, Filters, Markup and AI suggestions.
As far as sharing is concerned, you can create a share link on OneDrive and send pictures to others. But one can also make expiration links by adding a password to the shared link to move sensitive photos and videos around.
On the other hand, Photos has added a social contact / chat touch with the sharing feature. Alternatively, photos can also be shared with your friends and family by creating a group of people. Hence, Google Photos makes it all smooth within the application itself.
Worldwide availability
As a part of Microsoft’s “Mobile First, Cloud First” slogan, the OneDrive application is available in native mode all over the world. The Microsoft OneDrive can be accessed on Windows, iOS, Mac, Android, and Web. People using Windows are in for a treat here. The OneDrive Gallery section is built right into the Windows 10 Photos app.
Here Google does not have such an integrated system. It has its native apps for Android and iOS whereas, for Windows and Mac, you’ll need to count on Web or Progressive Web App (PWA).
Widgets and User Interface (UI)
Here the two, OneDrive and Google Photos feature hardware design theme guidelines and offer a convenient lower bar for browsing. There’s nothing much to complain about here.
However using the OneDrive widget, you can easily find a photo or open the photos tab in the application. Surprisingly, Google Photos lacks a support widget on Android but for iOS, they offer easy-to-use iOS 14 widgets.
Pricing the Both Cloud Drives
Here OneDrive offers 5GB of complimentary storage. One can buy a Microsoft 365 subscription which unlocks Microsoft Office applications along with 1 TB of OneDrive storage.
Nevertheless, Google Photos offers plenty of 15GB of storage. But this storage will be a part of Gmail and Google Drive as well. In the end, the subscription starts at $1.99 for 100GB per month.
Conclusion
Wrapping it up, ultimately it all depends on you whether to choose Microsoft OneDrive or Google Photos. Let us make this easier.
Go with Google Photos, as it advances with higher sharing AI-based suggestions with class edition features. Or opt for OneDrive if you already have a Microsoft 365 subscription promoting security and better image organization.
