Google Photos is a service that offers unlimited cloud storage for your photos for free, up to 15GB. Beyond 15GB, you can pay a small monthly fee to store your photos. The Aura App offers a Google Photos integration, which allows you to access and add those photos (with a 50-megapixel photo limit) to your frame.

You can use Google Photos with Aura to: 
 

• Sync entire Google Photos albums with the frame via the Aura app's "Auto-Add" function. All current photos will be added, and any additional photos you add to these albums on Google Photos will be automatically sent to the Aura frame.
   
• Select individual photos (up to 50 megapixel) for your frame(s), on Android devices only. For iOS devices, you can add individual photos directly from the Google Photos app by using the Share Sheet.

Individual photos will remain on the frame even if you then delete them from Google Photos. In order to also remove those photos from the frame, you will have to use the "remove" option within the app itself. See Removing Photos from Your Frame.

However, if you sync an entire Google Photos album with your frame as an auto-add album, any photos that you delete from within that Google Photos album will also disappear from your frame. This may take a day or two.

How to Add Google Photos Albums to your Frame

1. Create a Google account, if you don’t already have one. 
    
2. Open the Aura app on your smart device and tap the three lines icon in the top left corner to view your home screen. 
    
3. Select the frame that you would like to add Google Photos to.  
    
4. Tap “Add Photos”, to be directed to the photo selector page. Note, the app will now show you all individual photos, not your albums. 
    
5. Important: Tap on the top Camera Roll (iOS) or Photos (Android) button to change from individual photo view to album view. Your app will then show any albums that it can see (on your smart device or Google Photos account):
    
6. Scroll to the bottom, where you'll see a Google Photos logo, and the option "Sync photo albums” and “Add individual photos.” Select "Sync photo albums" to connect your account.
   
   
    
7. On the pop-up that appears, select "Connect to Google Photos."
    
8. Google Photos will ask if you want to "Sign in to Aura." Select "Continue."
    
9. Next, Aura will request permission to access your Google Photos account. You must grant access in order for Aura to add your Google Photos albums to the frame. Check the box next to "Connect the photo frame to Google Photos to display content you select," scroll down, and select Continue.
    
10. You'll now be prompted to continue in Google Photos. Select "Open Google Photos" to continue to the Google Photos app, where you'll be able to sync albums to the frame.
     
11.  To sync any of the listed albums to the Aura frame, tap the "+" symbol next to the album's name. An album will display a blue checkmark alongside it once it's been selected for syncing. In addition to your pre-existing albums, options include:

• "Select people & pets" to create a new, auto-updating album, which will add any new photos to the frame that feature the selected people & pets.
• "Photo frame highlights" to create an album populated by your best photos (as selected by Google Photos).
• "Favorites" adds any photos you mark as a favorite in the Google Photos app.

If you’d like to add albums to an additional frame, select the “back” arrow in the upper-left, which will take you to a page listing your frames. Select the additional frame you want to add the photos to, and repeat the steps above.

12. After you have finished selecting the albums to sync, you must manually return to the Aura App, either by using the “back button” on your phone or by switching focus to the Aura app.
     
13. You should see a “Welcome Back” message:
    
    
    
    Tap “OK” to proceed back to the Aura app.
     
14. Once your albums have synced to the frame, you should see a banner that says “Auto-Add” and the number of albums you’ve added. Your newly synced albums will normally appear within an hour, though they may take up 24 hours to appear. Photos are uploaded sequentially, so larger albums may take some time to display all of their photos.
     
15. Tap the banner to view the albums. From here, you can edit the photos, or hide them from the slideshow. Note that you’ll have to return to the Google Photos app to remove albums.
     

How to remove Google Photos Albums

Albums synced from Google Photos need to be unsynced to be fully removed. Unsyncing is done from within the “Frames Photos” section of the Google Photos app. You can navigate to this in two ways:

From within the Aura App

1. Navigate to the Photos tab of the Aura App, and tap the “Auto-Add” banner:

    

   

   
    

2. Select any album, then tap the three dots in the upper-right corner.
    
3. In the pop-up that appears, select “Open Google Photos.”

From the Google Photos app directly

1. Open the Google Photos app, and go to the Accounts page (by tapping your icon in the upper-right).
2. Scroll down and select “Photo Settings.”
3. Select “Apps & devices.”
4. Select “Photo Frames.”
5. Select the Aura frame you’d like to remove albums from. If you’ve added the album to multiple frames, you’ll need to remove it one frame at a time.

Removing the Albums

Tap the blue checkmark next to the album(s) you wish to remove. It will revert to a “+” symbol, and the album will be un-synced. Note that it may take up to 24 hours to un-sync the album from your frame, and photos from the album may still display on the frame for a few days until the photo feed is refreshed (which will happen automatically).

How to add and remove individual photos from Google Photos

The steps to add individual photos will differ depending on your device.

iOS devices (iPhone, iPad)

To add individual photos on iOS, you’ll need to share them directly from the Google Photos app. Please see Using the Share Sheet for more information.

Android devices

On Android, you can add individual photos directly from your Google Photos account. To do so:

1. Open the Aura app on your smart device and tap the three lines icon in the top left corner to view your home screen. 
    
2. Select the frame that you would like to add Google Photos to.  
    
3. Tap “Add Photos”, to be directed to the photo selector page. Note, the app will now show you all individual photos, not your albums. 

Important: Tap on the top “Photos” button to change from individual photo view to album view. Your app will then show any albums that it can see (on your smart device or Google Photos account).
 

4. Scroll to the bottom, where you'll see a Google Photos logo, and the option "Sync photo albums” and "Add individual photos." Select  “Add individual photos.”
    
5. You’ll be taken to the Android photo library (integrated with Google Photos), and can select photos from your local device folders, Google Photos albums, and unsorted photos.
    
6. Tap the photo(s) you want to add. A blue checkmark will appear over the photo. When you are done selecting photos, tap “Done” in the upper right.
    
7. Confirm which frame(s) you want to add the photos to, then hit Add X, where X is the number of chosen photos.
    
8. The added photos will appear in your Activity feed and Photos tab.
    
9. To remove the photos, see How can I remove Photos and Videos from my frame?                    

How to remove the entire Google Photos integration from your frame 

You can disconnect your Google Photos library from the Aura app with the following steps:

1.  Tap on the three lines icon in the top left corner and select "View Account". 
2. Scroll down and tap “Google Photos,” and select “Disconnect.” Note that this will remove all photos added via Google Photos from the frame.

If the information in this article hasn't helped you resolve your problem, please submit a detailed support request and Aura's Customer Care Team will help.