Wren Martinez

Yeah, i did this after the divorce and it's been a game-changer for family movie nights! Bundling up with something like Hulu + Disney + ESPN means we're all happy without breaking the bank, and I save like 15 dollars monthly. The kids get their cartoons, I get my reality shows and and no more arguing over passwords. Plus, it's super easy to set up, and we haven't missed a single episode of our favorites. Totally recommend giving it a shot if you're not watching much anyway!

Hey Connor. Pick one hub and stick to it so you are not paying twice and juggling duplicates. For cross‑platform and easy sharing & Google Photos has been the least painful for me. Install Google Photos on both iPhones, tap your profile icon > Photos settings > Backup, turn it on, and set Upload size to Storage saver to stretch your storage. On the web, open Google Photos settings and use Manage storage to compress existing originals to Storage saver and review the suggested deletions for large videos, blurry shots, and duplicates. on the phone, use Free up space after backup completes. For the DSLR and old folders, install Google Drive for desktop, Preferences > Add folder, select your DSLR folder, and check Back up to Google Photos. also enable Upload from SD cards so future imports auto‑upload when you plug in a card. Let the first upload run overnight with the laptop plugged in, and if your internet is slow, set Drive for desktop > Preferences > Settings > Bandwidth to limit upload during the day. Have one simple local backup so you can delete confidently: a cheap external drive with folders like Photos/2020/2020‑07‑LakeTrip and keep RAWs in Originals/2020/07. Do not over‑organize because date, face, and place search will do the heavy lifting. if capture dates are wrong on a few DSLR files, fix them only for the keepers, not the entire backlog. Set up Partner sharing in Google Photos (Settings > Partner sharing) so your partner automatically gets everything or only specific faces since a date. for example, we auto‑share all photos of our kid and anything since 2018. For grandparents, make one album called Grandparents and turn on Automatically add for selected people so new photos of the kids show up without you doing anything, then share that album link with them. Once you see everything in Google Photos and your external drive backup looks good, stop the double billing by turning off iCloud Photos on the iPhone in Settings > Photos after choosing Download and Keep Originals to avoid unexpected deletions. Expect the cleanup to take a weekend for the initial push, but after that it is hands‑off and you only need to review the Manage storage page every month or so.