How to efficiently embed photos in Connect from Google Photos

StephenAbraham · February 3, 2020, 1:49pm

With the recent enabling of html edit, as many would have already known, we can start embedding photos from others sites and also from any Google Photos shared album directly here in a Connect post.

This post details a short guide on how to do it.

And for the more advanced user (if you don’t know it already), how to overcome the very long URL link of Google Photos shared link (approx 800 characters URL link per photo) which quickly filled up the 20,000 character limit per post if many photos are embedded. look up to step (6) below using URL shorteners.

Note: as always, share photos taken by ourselves or with relevant permissions from their respective owners.

Hopefully most of us are using the free Google Photos service, if not, please try it out. Google Photos configured at “High Quality” setting, allows users to store unlimited. compressed photos at max 16MP and compressed video at max 1080p

If you have not tried it, download the app or head on to https://photos.google.com/

Login into Google Photos with your Google account.

Upload your photos into Google Photos, organize them as you need.

We want to create a Shared Album. I would suggest for our intention for Connect posts, just use 1 single Shared Album (instead of creating many), and add any photo we want to use to that single Shared album.

If you are new to using Google Photos Shared Album, you can read this link for the basics

https://support.google.com/photos/answer/6131416

For the below, unfortunately we need to use the desktop to derive the image URL for embed. I am using Chrome browser on Windows 10. So may need others to verify if this works the same on other browsers/OS.

In your Shared Album, locate the photo you want to share.

Click on that photo so only the photo is displayed in the browser. The browser URL is a redirect, so we cannot use the browser URL.

Right Click on the photo, and “Copy image address”.

*If you paste the link copied above into notepad, you will see a very long URL up to possibly 800 characters long.

This is an example link of a photo from Google Photos Shared Album I used for a post

https ://lh3.googleusercontent.com/hKx_jWCes1afF8TPJrvpAY-R3NmOOIjMZ0AqPOS-dMN1o1h8a2iLrmPmn0P8erFOJon1o7dWZM76X1hsV-GwoBi_QG3wPPqWOX0mP9UOv171Lji40Yj_ZBSuRV8OEctg2lQpKGpnGwzbODBP_VSRkv16otc1SWS3_dCl-O8pqUxcUsp6Di8FvzvdVfiqTUkmfk3XKG-THxPNml3H4_iAEykJGrHfQ672aS7CIt-9_b5vgj8o-6xtVRSYIHjuq6EX9QWbTVS1vOMhtuP1op3y1EeapWmr25rum_r-35iL3TCWoAhf2cteTlEeDj_AsMPd23xDwHpNQnE-UtCADdbxu8WxPBunEzrUIGkCd2l0sXf97HxHI3itQF5j020GJd1axhkKTn0zqV_DgDYpItDTAhvt7R5XF5NHvPn3IeGQsgc4y81_YLstJwmq1w7_2Uo5ZVPsHmteCJVPPwXY4L1mC8Urq0rkDPkFhXWH9S5gZjBcYGF_QPujTKAkmoVmxoSzZH2dLLwUFNK0oKfAhong8RHZObl4HOSYSgW548xTyYa3qHjfNL0owUXxicTD-LXjpDIyLGt4c-MwPqz_Or4UVgeHFWEusG8sZk4ziqWq2TOkYaEtThL7VH8cybvJkNaVNQ9Vo0OeKZ4Lg8y_fOF2J7oNMYFV4ULWsTb2t4a41KqPPTcq2KRhXtAlB-TZAv8PDLI5Dcuu8oKzpxbm7xmL7xakNzPzoYkRibJkHQDg6rQCvgf_=w1331-h998-no

Go to your Connect post. Click on the [HTML] button in the function bar.

Type/copy in this text into the source code window

Amd paste your link into the text in the “quotes” above. Make sure only replace the text within the quotes.

Click OK, and the photo should have been embedded in the post. And you can then edit the text around the images without using html after you exit the source code image.

You can position the image embed string any where in the post by looking for the correct position of the surrounding text.

Continue to embed other photos as needed. Note that because of very long URL, one would very quickly reach the 20,000 character limit per post after embedding about 20 photos. To overcome this read on step (6).

== using URL shorteners (not recommended unless absolutely necessary) ==

I have found that the Image embed URL for Connect actually works with some URL shorteners. The below 3 actually works. I am not promoting these, only sharing that they work. There could be other URL shorteners that work besides the 3 below.

https://bitly.com/

https://bit.do/

https://tiny.cc/

Run your long image URL from step (3) via the above URL shortener and instead of the 800 character URL, we have these for the same images. Use any one or others that may work. As you can see, a 800+ character URL gets shorten to 20+ characters. Which means now a single post can be embedded with many multiple more images than before.

https://bit.ly/392OImr

http://tiny.cc/4xqijz

http://bit.do/fru27

Use the shortened URL in step (4) instead of the original long URL to embed in html.

Use only one of link, this is the example of embedding the 3 links above.

embedded below https://bit.ly/392OImr

embedded below http://tiny.cc/4xqijz

embedded below http://bit.do/fru27

[upload|s9RYCL4Y391DY2FScHVjew==]

Anyone discover any issues around this or any other useful tips regarding image embed, please share as comment below.

Now we can create much longer posts with many images. Have fun everyone.

I would suggest to only use URL shorteners if you need it. If your post is not over 20,000 characters, just use the full Google Photos link is better.

Ant_Bad_Yogi · February 3, 2020, 2:04pm

@StephenAbraham Nice tips. I will try this before I reach 1000 limit. If I find any conflict, I will ask you. Thank you for sharing these tips with us.

C_T · February 3, 2020, 2:26pm

Incredibly useful information @StephenAbraham , particularly about the URL shorteners.

ravindus · February 3, 2020, 2:27pm

@StephenAbraham , This is great. I was wondering whether we could directly embed photos to connect from Google photos. URL shortener is a very useful tip. . Thank you so much…!!!

Saidulkarim · February 3, 2020, 3:42pm

Very informative post. Thanks, @StephenAbraham for sharing

ShafiulB · February 3, 2020, 6:23pm

@StephenAbraham Very appreciated post. Thanks for sharing! It works fine with the easiest way.

JeroenM · February 3, 2020, 7:36pm

Thank you @StephenAbraham for this nice additional tutorial on embedding photos. The URL shortener tip was not mentioned in the earlier posts that I have seen so thank you!

Important Missing Insights

As discussed in this post, there are issues that you need to be aware of when using embedded photos.

Connect Only Issues

Normally the first image in your post becomes the featured image for your post on Connect. However, when your first image is embedded and your second image is uploaded, the 2nd image will be your featured image for your post.
As not all Connect Boards have HTML enabled for standard users, the moment your posts/ comment get merged by a Googler with a Help-Desk file (“to better organize Connect”), you lose permission rights to your post). This is not (yet) confirmed as the reason, but a hypothesis of a recent experience I had, reported here. If not, it will definitely have an impact on your comments, as it did for me.

Sharing On Facebook (and perhaps other Social Media)

In case ALL your photos of your post are embedded and someone comments on your post with an uploaded image. The embedded images are no longer pushed as possible featured images when your post is shared with a preview and instead one of the uploaded comments photo(s) will show. In other words, you risk that the image used to promote your photo is not relevant or desirable to represent your post.

LuigiZ · February 3, 2020, 11:51pm

Very useful tips @StephenAbraham , thank you for sharing.

deeppancholi · February 4, 2020, 12:43pm

so helpful information @StephenAbraham

can you please help me to embed 360 photos on connect post?

i’m getting an error on tha!

StephenAbraham · February 4, 2020, 1:38pm

@iDepp unfortunately at the moment, Connect doesn’t render 360 photos, we can embed as per an image, it will show as a flat equirectangular photo.

The other thing is with html, Connect community members cannot use iframe in html, I believe. So there is no way to embed an iframe from Street View or from other 360 photo hosting service.

The one way around it would be to render 360 image into a YouTube video, upload the video into YouTube and insert the link into your post, the YouTube player will be able to play 360 video within the Connect post.

Hope this helps.

davidhyno · February 4, 2020, 2:41pm

Thanks so much @StephenAbraham !
Excellent idea when using shorteners links, I hope that over time they will always be active!
Next time I will try with this method!

Bye,
David

StephenAbraham · February 4, 2020, 3:14pm

@davidhyno You are right about how long the URL shorteners will stay active. So, I would only suggest to use if one needs it, ie, your post is over 20,000 characters in total including all the backend code. If not, just use the Google Photos shared link would be good enough.

deeppancholi · February 5, 2020, 5:38am

Thank You for your answer! @StephenAbraham

have a look this post. i’m trying to embed this kind of street view into our post on connect. because i remeber we was able to do that in past.

Thank you!

StephenAbraham · February 5, 2020, 5:53am

@iDepp That’s an

PavelSarwar · February 5, 2020, 8:42am

@StephenAbraham very helpful post abang. Thanks for sharing.

karan_iclickthese · May 15, 2020, 12:33pm

@NareshDarji Thanks for directing me to this post.

This is veryyy informative post thank you soo much for sharing this knowledge with us @StephenAbraham

BudiFXW · October 19, 2021, 3:32am

Thank you abang @StephenAbraham .

Very usefull, especially my photos issue, getting nearer to the 1 k post. Same with @Ant_Bad_Yogi