How to download pictures on android for tv

And so I started digging. And sure enough, I found a pretty simple workaround for getting Google Photos to work as the screensaver on an Android TV device. In fact, it's actually quite a bit better than the native implementation on Chromecast.

The app you want is by a developer named Furnaghan. Open that sucker up, and take a minute to poke around through the options. The first thing you'll want to do, of course, is connect the app to your Google Photos library. You can also opt to connect it to Facebook, Flickr, and px in addition, if you have images in any of those places and want some extra variety. And you can specify which albums you want to be included from any of those services, in case you need to exclude certain ahem extra- personal photos from being featured.

The app lets you select exactly how long each image should stay on the screen as well as how different types of photos should be handled in terms of cropping or fitting to your TV's dimensions. You can also pick what sort of info is shown on the screen along with each image -- a clock, the name of any currently playing music track, and photo date or album info. There's a setting called "Smart Random" that's supposed to help "intelligently" pick what pictures are displayed, but I've found we've gotten far better variety with that feature disabled; in fact, my wife and I have both noticed that we're seeing a much more varied and diverse selection of images now than we ever did with the Chromecast, which for some reason always seemed to revisit the same relatively small pool of pictures from our collection.

Oh, and make a mental note: With this setup, you can manually skip forward or back anytime the slideshow is playing -- if you ever come across a photo you want to bypass quickly or maybe see again -- by pressing the forward or back button on your Android TV remote. Once you have everything set to your liking, you'll want to hop over to the Display section of the main Android TV settings and look for the option labeled "Daydream" yes, that term was used for screensavers on Android before it became the name of Google's new VR platform.

Make sure Photo Screensaver is selected, and set how much time you want to go by before the screensaver kicks in. Last but not least, prepare your virtual piggybank: By default, Photo Screensaver shows only your 50 oldest photos -- basically a trial mode so you can check the app out and see if it's right for you. And these cables differ depending on whether you have an Apple, Samsung or other Android phone.

With an Android, you need a mobile high-definition link MHL cable. Since Apple products are designed to be compatible with other Apple devices, you will need to get a lightning digital AV adapter to connect your device to a TV. Once the two devices are connected, you can pull up photos that are on your smartphone, open photo apps or social apps, and the pictures will appear on your TV screen. For Samsung phone users, unfortunately, the MHL cable is discontinued. Because they are wireless, they do not require an HDMI cable.

Miracast technology is built in to Samsung and many Android devices as well as many Windows devices. Make sure to check that your phone is compatible with these wireless technologies.

This means it is automatically works with Android 4. Simply plug the receiver in to your TV. Are you wondering where you can get more information on Wireless Display and Screenbeam Mini2? What is a Wireless Display Adapter? Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website.

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I had to install it on both my phone and my TV to enable the cursor mode. The app requires accessibility access and the permission to display over other apps it's putting a cursor on top of your screen. I also noticed that it kept asking for USB debugging and the permission to access media, but I got it to work without those.

Honestly, I'm not very comfortable recommending this because the app asks for more access than it needs. But if you don't have a Shield or a mouse, then it's the only thing that works.

You can always revoke the permissions — and even uninstall the app — once you're done setting things up in Photos. Regardless of the way you got a cursor to show up on your TV, it's time to enable that screenshot folder backup. Go to your avatar on the top right of Google Photos. All of the steps are outlined in the screenshots below. And with that done, you can simply go back, disable the mouse and continue living your life normally.

Each time you take a screenshot, it'll be automatically backed up to Google Photos, and it'll become accessible from all your devices. It works in the background too, just like Photos on any other Android device, but it may not be as instantaneous.

Give it a few seconds if you don't see the images pop up on your phone. I told you before we got started that this wasn't a simple process and I hope you realize why it's not worth it, given all the limitations you still end up facing once the app is installed. But if you often take screenshots on your TV and want to get them wirelessly over to your other devices, there's nothing as quick and reliable as Photos backups.

Rita is a Managing Editor at Android Police. Once upon a time, she was a pharmacist as well. Her love story with Android started in and has been going stronger with every update, device, tip, app, and game.

She lives in France, speaks three languages and a half, and watches a lot of TV series. Why get the Google Photos app I could talk about how more convenient it is to browse your gallery directly on the TV instead of looking down at the phone then up at the big screen, but really that's a tiny nitpick.

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