Sure sir @TerryPG
I will give you the practical feedback.
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Thank you my fellow Canuck @GasparKaren , I do hope people will use it.
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@TerryPG This is great, thank you! Iām still gunshy when it comes to filming, but I often take way more photos than I post. This could be a great way to use them and test the results.
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Thank you @JustJake I have had unbelievable success lately with Videos. I have hinting that videos are the future and the future is here now, at least for me.
I love the idea of using a video for extra photos, you got me thinking of another idea.
Please try it, test it and please share it here. I would love to see a few guides share their highlight video here.
Amazing tips @TerryPG. I do not use Google Photos. Is there any other way this can be done?
Also @Rednewt74, can you remind me of the name you used for the videos you created when you first came to Connect and the Leaderboards?
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Tony,
Below you will see where Iāve gone off on a long discussion of whether you need to save media files after you upload them to Maps and consider the option of using 10GB Google drive storage (that leaves 5GB for everything else) vs a 1 TB external hard drive.
Because As I remember, you choose not to use Google photos to avoid using up all of your free Google drive storage.
Terry is correct that Google photos now contains enough video editing tools to create videos that work well on Maps. It is built in, simple and I believe well documented. When the video for maps thing came up, I started using Capcut for my Maps videos, because it contained features that were not available in Gphotos. Some still arenāt, but for the most part I could do everything in Gphotos that I do in Capcut. I still think that color & exposure correction are easier in Capcut. Of course Capcut is made by Tiktok and may still be banned in the US at some point in the future. You donāt have join or use Tiktok to use Capcut and as long as you donāt let Capcut upload videos directly, there is no watermark or made by capcut labeling.
I strongly support Terryā recommendation on using Google Photos to make videos for Maps.
If it is the case that you choose not to use Google photos to avoid using up all of your free Google drive storage, then you may want to keep reading.
I want to ask you a couple of questions and do some thinking out loud for you to consider
- Is it important for you to keep copies of photos and videos that you have uploaded to Maps?
- If so, could you invest US $75 for a 1 terabyte external hard drive?
It would be good to hear from @terryPG, @justjake, and @wilfriedB as to what their practice towards keeping media contributed to Maps long term, because there may be factors Iām not considering.
I personally donāt think you need to save every media item you contribute to Maps. I do save most of mine, but I donāt really know what the long term value is. I am almost always getting warnings from Google that I have less than 10% of my storage available. Every now and then I go back through my large media items (google will help you with this and it makes it very easy) and delete both personal and Maps media that I no longer value.
Regarding storage, my calculations show that if you allow 10 of the 15 GB for media (and letās make that an equal number of videos and photos) that one could store less than 200 each of photos and videos (about 380 total media files). This is based on my videos averaging 50 MB and my photos averaging 2.5 MB.
On a dedicated 1 TB external drive, with the same assumptions, you could store about 38,000 total media files
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Thank you for the question @Rednewt74!
As some might already know. I donāt post to Maps and then think what else to do with the photo, but vice versa instead. I always made many photos and even before getting my first digital camera, I did keep each and every image on local PC storage, unless completely black, white or blurred (which rarely happens).
I organize the stored photos in a way, I can easily find and retrieve any of the (282 K) photos quickly. This includes being able to find those on Google Maps which I did post.
I do store many photos in Google Photos, but only for sharing with others in a reduced size, so I only used 13 GB of the 36 GB I yearly pay less than 10$ for.
Even though not supported anymore since several years. I still use Picasa on Windows to export to Google Photos and perform minor editions. For more sophisticated editing, I use Gimp, but that happens very rarely.
If ever would make video, I might try the editing functions in Google Photos, but only upload, edit, post to Maps, download and delete it from Photos again. But so far, I donāt have any plans for making videos yet ā¦
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I really admire your approach to organizing your photos.
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I rarely keep a photo or video that I load to the Map. Iāll shoot exclusively for posting and then get rid of it after editing.
I only use the Google Photos app to edit my contributions since I donāt see a reason for them to be overly edited. Using a program like Gimp, as @WilfriedB mentioned, seems to be overkill for this purpose. Gimp is a free option if you are looking for a Photoshop alternative, but I think my Pixel phone and camera do a great job getting pictures close enough, so I make minor adjustments in Photos. My wife is a Photoshop pro, and we have plenty of reasons to use it. Iām not knocking any of the power-editing tools.
To edit video, Iāve tried one of the Adobe editors, and have heard the praises of Capcut from @Rednewt74, but I shoot video so rarely that I stick with Google Photos. Now, Iāve yet to really get into @TerryPGās suggestion here regarding video collage. That might warrant a Capcut trial. But, it looks like Photos has everything Iād need.
Iām all in with Google Photos and the Google universe. After years of Google promotions and program consolidations, Iāve settled on the 2 TB plan, which is more than sufficient for my family to share. I keep DSLR photos on physical backups.
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
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Great points from everyone, @Rednewt74 @JustJake @WilfriedB @tony_b
When I first started guides some 7 years ago I was using Google photos only but with my photos and my wifeās thousand of pics of the grandkids, I started to delete my photos to keep space available. Then a few years ago I purchased 100GB of space from Google, Cost likes $2.50 a mth. Approx. I do not need that much space. I am sitting at around 8-10GB used only.
I still delete 90% of contributions once uploaded to maps. I do wish I had kept a few of them over the years, especially when I still have over 200 photos hidden that where attached to reviews from 2021.
I know Wilfried keeps all of his categorized. Personally I donāt need to. I obviously have some favourites and keepsake ones that mean something I keep.
But like Jake, once uploaded, I have no need for it.
Great discussion guys.
Ps. still anxiously waiting for Wilfriedās first video, I know it will be a Doozy.
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@TerryPG
Wow Terry this is an awesome post! I had no idea this was even possible. I definitely want to give it a try.
Thank you for sharing and particularly all the step by step screenshots, I think, even I will be able to make a video this way.
I do have a question though how did you get your video link to appear in the nice neat box with the thumbnail etc? When I have posted links they donāt appear that way. Whatās the secret? 
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I love your thinking @Rednewt74. This question of whether I need to keep the photos, raises another question of whether I need to keep the amount of emails that I do. Without a change of habits, your 10:5 ratio isnāt going to work for me, as Iām already at 8 GB of mail and 2.5 GB of WhatsApp backup, plus a bit of Drive and 0.03 GB of Photos which accidentally got saved years ago before I made a firm decision.
Yes, as a Diamond Product Expert in the Gmail help forum, Iāve seen too many users in agony over unusable email accounts clogged up with excess storage, so Iām not going there. And in my part of the world, Google doesnāt allow us to pay for any of the premium options, even if I wanted to upgrade my storage beyond the free plan.
But to get back to the point of this thread, Iāll investigate ways of uploading specific photos or videos to Google Photos to use the available tools, without allowing the app to become my backup for my full album of 17 years of āphotographyā.
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Tony,
Iām so glad you found my thoughts helpful. I have a couple of techniques I use to make it easier to keep track of your Maps photos and how to keep them separated from your personal photos. I wrote about it a couple of years ago. If I donāt find the post I will summarize the ideas for you. Headed to bed now, so I will catch you later.
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Same as for the photos @tony_b: keep important mails locally. I use Thunderbird for all mail addresses I have and move important mails into a local folder structure and deleted (including moved) mails are deleted from the mail server after one month.
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you never know, @TerryPG . Meanwhile I am learning and needed to search (and found) for the meaning of āDoozyā 
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Correct and as far as I remember, I never used it for anything posted on Maps @JustJake.
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While saying āall photos are useless, unless providing a context (when, where, what, who ā¦)ā, I consider each photo as historical document and a personal diary. I feel sorry for each lost photo or all pictures without description. Google Maps is only one of several purposes, I use my photos for.
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Interesting post @TerryPG and thank you for making me aware of it. What do you say about contributing the photos individually to a POI and then collectively in a video 
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Thank you @IzzyOz
I make and edit all my videos on my phone but I took the shared link using desktop and posted. Whether that makes the difference, Iām not sure.