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10 best photo sharing apps on Android
Photo sharing is basically second nature these days. Almost everything supports images these days and it’s never been easier to share your experiences with people. However, there is a time and place. Obviously, you’d prefer to keep your personal stuff just between you and your friends and family. Not everything belongs on Facebook. For this list, we tried to show apps where you could share private as well as public so you can keep your privacy. So, with that in mind, here are the best photo sharing apps for Android.
The best photo sharing apps for Android
500px
Price: Free / $4.99-$9.99 per year
500px is a decent photo sharing app. It lets you share your work with millions of photographers across the world. The app lets you expose your work to other professionals and maybe even get paid for it as well. It works as a social media style app. You get a profile where you can upload your work. Your work can be licensed as well so people don’t just steal it. The developers have been working on some features changes and additions. Thus, it’s a bit buggier than we’d like at the time of this writing. However, it works for sharing your photos to a wider audience.
Amazon Photos
Price: Free with Prime / $19.99 per year
Amazon Photos is one of the better photo sharing apps, especially if you already pay for Amazon Prime. It’s a photo storage app that automatically uploads your photos to the cloud as a backup. From there, you can easily share them with other people or on social media. This is a nifty one-two punch, especially if you have family members that also use Amazon Photos. It pales in comparison to Google Photos, but Amazon Prime customers get this for free. It’s really difficult to argue with free.
Also check out: The best photo backup apps for Android
Cloud storage
Price: Free / varies
Cloud storage is another good place to quickly share photos. Most cloud storage sites let you share directly with other cloud storage users. For instance, you can upload a photo to Google Drive, share it with another Google Drive user, and the other person can view it without a single message needing to be sent. This is a slightly less efficient version of Google Photos or Amazon Photos. That said, it’s a lot more useful as temporary storage while you pass a link around so you can delete it later. Most cloud storage sites give you some storage for free so it’s a matter of finding the one that works best for you.
See also: The best cloud storage apps for Android
Discord
Price: Free / $4.99-$9.99 per month
Discord is one of the best group chat apps on the Internet. You can create servers for free, use it for free, bring in tens of thousands of people into your servers for free, and share photos with them. There is one caveat, though. Images over 8MB can’t be shared unless you let Discord compress them. It’s a bit of a limitation, but it’s also a free service millions of people use so we understand the need to save a few bucks here and there. Discord Nitro, the $9.99 per month plan removes the 8MB limit on shared images. In any case, with its channel-based layout, you can create a whole channel for photos, share photos there, and keep track of who shared what and when. Discord isn’t just for gamers.
Read also: The best chat apps for Android
Price: Free (usually)
Email is still a very serviceable method for sharing photos. However, it’s only good if you want to share one or two photos at a time. Email, like Discord, SMS, and other photo sharing apps, does have a size limit on a single email. That said, you can share one or two photos quickly with a small or large group of people. Or you can share a link to your Google Photos or Amazon Photos album. Email is also nice for the organization. You can archive emails or categorize them for easy recall later. That functionality makes it useful for storing stuff long term if needed. Plus, email is free.
Google Photos
Price: Free (first 15GB) / $1.99-$9.99 per month
Google Photos used to be the slam dunk, de facto choice for this sort of thing. However, it became a paid service and that put a damper on things. Regardless, it does basically the same thing as Amazon Photos, but it’s a lot more polished. It auto uploads your photos and lets you share them in a wide variety of ways. You can share whole albums or just single photos with your friends and family rather quickly. Additionally, if your friends and family also use Google Photos, the in-app sharing functionality is really good. The app is also capable of making things like collages, short animations, and cute little videos that add a bit of flair to your photographs. The subscription plans range from $1.99 per month for 100GB to $9.99 per month for 2TB. You can go even higher if you really need it.
Imgur
Price: Free
Imgur is the most popular photo sharing app for Reddit users. The reason is that the app is free to use. You simply choose the photo you want to upload, upload it, and then the app generates a link for easy sharing on social media, Reddit, in messages, and wherever else you want. We don’t recommend using it as a photo storage app like Google Photos and Amazon Photos. Imgur really isn’t built for that kind of storage. Images uploaded are permanent, though, so you can go back in and grab the link for that photo whenever you want.
SmugMug or Flickr
Price: Free trial / $7-$42 per month
We’re listing SmugMug and Flickr together because both photo sharing apps are owned by the same company. SmugMug is a less popular, but still functional photo storage app that boasts unlimited uploads starting at $7 per month. The app is pretty clean and it works like most others. It uploads your photos to a single spot. From there, you can re-download them, share them, or link them in various other places as needed. What we like about SmugMug is that you can password protect the galleries you share just in case the links get into the wrong hands. It also helps you create a website with your photos that you can easily share with others. Flickr is okay for this sort of stuff too. However, it also costs $7 per month for unlimited storage so you might as well go with the one with better photo sharing features, which is SmugMug.
Social media
Price: Free (usually)
Social media apps are among the best photo sharing apps you can find. You simply select your photo or video, upload it, and share it with your friends or followers (depending on the social media site). You can do this basically forever and for free as long as you don’t mind ads and data collection. Instagram is probably the best for photo sharing since that’s its whole schtick. However, any social media site works. You can also post images, get links for them, and share those links in other places like chat apps or email. Of course, you already know all of this, so let’s move on.
Also check out: The best Facebook alternatives for Android
Nearby Share on Android
Price: Free
Nearby Share on Android works really well if you’re right next to the person you want to share a photo with. You and the other person need to enable Nearby Share in settings, but most modern Android phones have it. After that, you go to the photo, hit the share button, and select the Nearby Share option. The photo moves to your friend’s phone over the service and boom, you’re done. This isn’t the most widely known feature in Android, but it works really well. As a part of Android proper, it also works across OEMs, so a Pixel can easily share with a Samsung device if need be. Hit the button below to learn more about it from Google.
If we missed any great photo sharing apps that you might use, tell us about them in the comments. You can also click here to check out our latest Android app and game lists.
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