What Is a Partner Account in Google Photos

Imagine this: your partner is far from you and your children are with you. Typically, you would use a messaging app to share photos of your children with your partner. The downside of this method is that it is time consuming and an ongoing process. What if the photos were automatically shared with your partner? This is possible in Google Photos with partner accounts. Let's see what the partner account means in Google Photos.

We take a lot of photos from our phones. And apart from the problem of storage, nothing can stop us. Photo storage services like Google Photos even made up for that slightly. What could be better when the service automatically shares all these random photos with your partner?

But what about other photos and where are shared photos stored? Let's find out the answers to all of your questions in this article that cover partner accounts.

What is Add Partner Account in Google Photos

On the Sharing tab of Google Photos, Google will sometimes ask you to share your library with your partner. Known as shared libraries or a partner account, this is a feature that allows you to share your photos in Google Photos with your partner.

What makes this interesting is that the photos are shared continuously and automatically. In other words, if you take a new photo or video, it will automatically appear on your partner's phone in the Google Photos app. You have nothing to do.

What photos are shared

Google Photos offers three types of sharing for partners. First of all, you can either share all existing and new photos present in Google Photos. Second, you can only share photos of specific people. This is done by grouping faces. However, this is not foolproof technology, because sometimes photos of other people can also be shared. In this case also, the old and new photos of the person will be shared.

Note: Archived photos are not shared.

Finally, you can select a date from which you want to start sharing your photos. For example, if you select January 5, 2019, all photos taken after that will be shared, including new photos you will take in the future. Again, this case is not perfect, as sometimes the photos may have a different date, and they would be included.

Note: Only photos saved to your Google Photos account are shared. If backup and synchronization are disabled, no photos or videos will be shared with your partner.

What happens after adding a partner account

When you create a shared library, your partner will be notified. They will receive an invitation to accept the shared library. If they accept it, you will see the photos that are shared from your phone under the Sharing tab.

What happens after accepting a partner account invitation

Once you have accepted an invitation for a partner account, you will also see the shared photos under the Sharing tab in Google Photos. Shared photos will not appear in the Photos tab unless you save them. It is made to facilitate the identification and separation of shared photos.

Note: Your photos are not shared with your partner when you accept the invitation.

The shared photos will appear as a stream in the sharing tab without any albums. You cannot create albums for photos shared by your partner without saving them to your phone. Even if you do, the albums will be created only on your side. They will not appear on your partner's phone.

Note: You will see shared photos of the same quality (original or high quality) as they are saved to your partner’s account.

Where shared photos are stored

Photos shared via a shared library will only take up storage space on the creator's side – on their device and their Google account. They will not take up storage on the partner's account. Even if the partner saves the photos in his account, the storage will not be occupied. It is only when the creator stops sharing the library or deletes the original copy that these photos start to take up space on your account.

How to create a partner account

To create a shared library with your partner, follow these steps on mobile applications (Android and iOS).

Step 1: Open the Google Photos app on the phone from which you want to share photos.

2nd step: Tap the three bar icon at the top. Select Settings from the menu.

Step 3: Tap Shared Libraries. The Share Your Library screen opens. Tap Start.

Step 4: Search for the person with whom you want to share your library by name or email address.

Note: You can only share your library with someone with a Google account.

Step 5: Now you will be asked to select the type of sharing. You can select all photos, photos of certain people or from a selected date. Confirm on the next screen by clicking on Send invitation.

Note: You can customize the sharing type later in the shared library setting.

Step 6: Your partner will receive a notification. They must press it and select Accept.

In case they miss the notification, they should go to the Sharing tab of the Google Photos app. Tap ABC guest and accept the invitation.

Note: To create a shared library on the web, open photos.google.com and tap the three bar icon at the top. Select Settings> Shared Libraries. The rest of the steps are the same as shown above.

How to access photos from shared libraries

As mentioned above, you will find the photos shared by your partner under the Sharing tab and not in the Photos tab.

Save photos from partner account

As long as the creator continues to share or does not delete the photos, you can access the shared photos. To be on the safe side, you can upload photos from the shared library to your own Google account.

Note: As mentioned earlier, saved photos will not take up storage on your account unless the partner deletes or stops sharing the photos.

To save photos, do the following:

Step 1: Tap the Sharing tab in the Google Photos app and select the shared library.

2nd step: Tap the three dot icon at the top and select Settings.

Stage 3: Tap Save to your library and choose All Photos.

Si vous ne souhaitez pas enregistrer toutes les photos, vous pouvez ouvrir la photo que vous souhaitez télécharger et appuyer sur l'option Enregistrer en haut.

Arrêter les notifications du compte partenaire

Chaque fois qu'une photo est ajoutée à la bibliothèque partagée, vous recevrez une notification à ce sujet. Pour l'arrêter, ouvrez la bibliothèque partagée et appuyez sur l'icône à trois points en haut. Sélectionnez Paramètres.

Turn off the toggle next to Notifications.

What Happens if Photos Are Deleted from Shared Library

Firstly, the partner with whom you are sharing the photos cannot delete the photos. If you delete photos from Google Photos, they will be removed from the shared library as well, if your partner hasn’t saved them. If they had saved them, their copy would continue to exist.

How to Remove Partner Account

To stop sharing your library, follow these steps:

Step 1: Open the shared library under the Sharing tab.

Step 2: Tap on the three-dot icon and select Shared library settings.

Step 3: Tap on Remove partner.

What Happens When You Remove a Partner

When you remove a partner, the shared photos will stop appearing on your partner’s Google Photos account unless they have saved the photos.

Customize What You Are Sharing

While creating a shared library, you are asked what kind of photos you want to share. If you change your decision regarding that, you can always customize it later.

For that, go to the Shared library settings from the three-dot icon. Then, tap on the Google account can access and customize the sharing.

Add Multiple Partners to Google Photos Shared Libraries

Sadly, you cannot share the Google Photos library with more than one person at a time. You will have to remove your current partner to add a new one.

However, an alternative exists. You can create shared albums and add multiple people to that. But shared albums and shared libraries have several differences, as mentioned below.

Difference Between Link Sharing and Shared Libraries

As you know, Google Photos offers other ways to share photos, and one of them is by link sharing. The difference between link sharing and shared libraries is that you have to add photos in the former manually. It’s a shared album where the other person can also contribute and add photos. That’s not possible in the partner account unless your partner shares their library with you. Even when that’s done, the shared libraries behave as separate entities.

Note: The shared albums are also accessible under the Sharing tab.

Further, you can add multiple people to shared albums. And all of them can add photos and comment on the shared pictures. Both features aren’t available in shared libraries.

Which Devices Support Google Photos Shared Libraries

Google Photos partner accounts work across all the platforms — Android, iOS, and even web. So you can create a partner account and even access shared photos on all the devices.

When to Use Shared Libraries

You can use a partner account when you want to share photos automatically with a certain person. For instance, if you were on a trip with your partner, you can share your library with them from a certain date. Once they save those photos to their phone, you can stop sharing your library.

Similarly, you can use it to share pictures of your kids with your partner. If you use Google Photos for business purposes, you can share pictures of your products with your partner.