Amazon Photos is a great way to store your photos and videos in the cloud, especially if you already subscribe to Amazon Prime. Subscribers get unlimited, full-resolution photo storage with Amazon Photos, and 5GB of video storage included with their membership. That's a pretty sweet deal, especially if you don't want to pay extra for a dedicated option like Google Photos or iCloud Photos.
But if you want to download your photos from Amazon Photos, it'll be a bit harder than other services. That's because Amazon doesn't let you download all your photos or albums at once — you need to select them by image or by date manually.
Why should you download your photos from Amazon?
Though Amazon Photos is a solid place to store your photos or videos, there are a few reasons why you might want to download them later. The most obvious reason is to switch to a different cloud storage provider, and since Amazon only offers 5GB of video storage to Prime members, you might consider switching to a cloud storage option with more space. There are alternatives, like Google Photos and Microsoft OneDrive, which can provide unique features of their own.
Downloading your photos and videos can also be helpful if you're trying to share or secure the data. By saving your valuable photos and videos to a computer or physical storage device, you have another layer of protection against data loss. The absolute worst-case scenario is losing memories due to not having backups of your photos and videos, and simply downloading the media to multiple storage locations can add peace of mind.
How to download photos from Amazon
- Start by opening Amazon photos on the web and signing in to your account.
- Next, select the photos or videos you want to download. You can select individual photos or ones grouped by date, but you cannot select whole albums.
- Click the download button in the bar at the top of the Amazon Photos window.
- Follow the on-screen prompts to continue the download.
- Look for your downloaded media in your browser's downloads window or your computer's downloads folder.
What comes next for your download
Unlike other cloud storage solutions, downloads for Amazon Photos happen instantly right in your browser. However, if you're downloading a ton of photos and videos, it may take a while for the downloads to finish. Since Amazon groups more than one image or video as one downloaded folder, all of your photos and videos will be found in a folder titled "AmazonPhotos." After the download has finished, you'll be able to view and share all your photos and videos.
Amazon Photos is a good cloud storage solution for Prime members, and it's easy to download photos and videos from the service when you need them. That could make it simple to switch to other alternatives or to just share and save your data.