Facebook quietly began testing photo sync in August, which allows you to automatically upload photos to the social network after taking them. Today, the site announced that this feature is rolling out to the public.
Photo sync lets you save the photos on your phone to Facebook privately, then choose which ones to share. The social network will try to sync your photos as soon as you take them. However, it’ll take into consideration your battery level and sync settings — you can choose to sync over Wi-Fi and your cellular network, Wi-Fi only, or turn it off entirely.
It’s also important to note that if you’re on a cellular network like 3G or 4G, photos may sync at a smaller size (around 100K each) so they use less of your data plan. You can hold off until you’re on a Wi-Fi network, where larger version of your photos can be synced without affecting your data plan. Photos will not sync if your battery is low.
We should also note that Photo Sync isn’t a separate app. The feature is available in the most recent versions of Facebook for Android and iOS — if you’re using an iPhone, iOS 6 is required. To start syncing your photos, tap Photos in the left-side navigation and choose Sync at the bottom. From there, follow the step-by-step instructions.
Currently you’re limited to 2GB of space. Additionally, since it’s only available through Facebook’s official mobile apps, which are linked to your personal profile, it doesn’t look like the private album can be linked to your Facebook Page. While brands might not be able to take immediate advantage of this, it’s definitely worth keeping an eye on as Facebook continues to bridge cloud storage and social networking.
