Sift: Choose what backs up

Soumya Ranjan Sethy

In-app purchases

About this app

Sift is photo backup control for Android: choose what backs up, one photo at a time. A backup prompt appears right after you take a photo or video, so receipts and screenshots stop filling your cloud while the keepers go up. It works as a Google Photos backup control, and with Google Drive and Dropbox too.

Tap Upload, Skip or Album right in the notification. No need to open the app. If you don't answer, the photo simply stays on your phone.

HOW IT WORKS
1. Take a photo. Sift notices it within a second and shows one quiet notification. A burst of ten is still one notification.
2. Tap Upload, Skip or Album. Upload moves the photo into a folder named Sift. Skip leaves it in your Camera folder. Album files it into a named album.
3. Your backup app backs up the Sift folder: Google Photos, Google Drive, or any app that backs up a folder. In your backup app, Camera backup goes off and Sift goes on; setup walks you through it, with a guide for Pixel and Samsung.

Prefer direct upload? Connect Google Drive, Google Photos or Dropbox and Sift uploads the photos you approve straight to your own account.

FEATURES
- One notification per burst, and Best of burst picks the sharpest frame
- Swipe to decide: a card deck for the pile
- History with undo: change any decision later
- Rules by time, weekday, folder or place, with a preview of what a rule would have caught last week
- People guard: a rule never skips photos with people in them unless you allow it
- Travel mode and Pause, from the app, a Quick Settings tile or a widget; both end by themselves
- Evening digest: one daily nudge instead of a prompt per photo
- Weekly safety check flags skipped photos that look important
- Free up space: clear photos that are already backed up, with one confirmation
- Missed while paused: anything Sift couldn't catch waits in a catch-up list
- Health card: watching, paused or blocked by battery saver
- Videos show length and size, so big clips don't slip into your cloud
- Lock-screen privacy: photo previews stay hidden on a locked phone
- Review older photos in the same swipe deck, resuming where you stopped
- Duplicate finder: exact and near copies, the best one picked
- Storage screen: photos, Sift folder and skipped items, month by month
- Skip and move to bin (optional): skipped photos go to the 30-day bin, never photos with people in them
- Watched sources: Camera, Screenshots, WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram, Downloads, each with its own default
- If a permission is turned off, Sift tells you and helps you turn it back on
- RAW and motion photos travel with their JPEG; SD cards are watched too
- Rule suggestions, home screen shortcuts, settings backup and restore, help and feedback
- Works with TalkBack, large text and tablets
- English and Hindi, with a language switch in Settings

FREE AND PRO
Free: the ask on every new photo, the Sift folder, Camera, History, one rule and every safety check.
Sift Pro, pay once: direct upload, unlimited rules, every source, Travel and Pause, Free up space, duplicates and storage. 14 days free first; after that Pro features pause, nothing is deleted.

PERMISSIONS, IN PLAIN WORDS
- Photos and videos (all): so Sift can see new items.
- Media management: moves approved photos without a prompt for each one.
- Notifications: the Upload, Skip and Album buttons are the app.
- Background service: keeps Sift listening for new photos, with an ongoing notification you can quiet.

PRIVACY
Your photos go only where you send them. Sift uses Firebase Analytics and Crashlytics for usage stats and crash logs; these never include photo content, file names, folder paths or locations, and you can switch both off in Settings. Full details: https://sift.lazycode.ai/privacy/

Free to use, with no ads. Sift Pro is an optional one-time purchase. Works on Android 11 or newer.

Sift is not affiliated with Google or Dropbox. Product names belong to their owners.

What’s new

Sift Pro: one payment, no subscription. It unlocks direct upload to Dropbox, Google Drive or Google Photos, unlimited rules, every watched source, Travel and Pause, Free up space, the duplicate finder and the storage screen. Everyone gets 14 days of Pro free. The ask on every new photo, the Sift folder, Camera, History and every safety check stay free.