I don’t really claim to know much about Google+ and what goes on over that side of the interweb, but I do think it’s safe to say the social network site hasn’t really caught on as its creators may have hoped.

Well every cloud is said to have a silver lining and it appears that holds true for Google’s less than flourishing networking site. The Google Photos storage software, previously available only as part of the Google+ site, will now stand on its own and is set to blow other storage options out of the water. Here’s The Verge with a gushing review:

It includes lightweight desktop software that will scour your Mac or PC for photos and videos new and old, uploading them to a private album in the cloud. It uses impressive machine learning to understand what’s in a photo, turning each picture into a series of keywords that are as searchable as Gmail. And it stores an unlimited number of files, at a resolution up to 16 megapixels or 1080p video, for free — making Google Photos the most generous photo storage option on the market.

Sheesh guys, sounds like someone has a nerd crush. The photo-organising software groups the images according to the four most commonly-used reference points, “who’s in it, where it was taken, what’s in it, and what type of image it is: a video, a panorama, and so on”.

The face detection technology is also something of a game-changer, very accurately compiling a list of all the most-often featured faces in your picture collection to make deleting photos that remind you of a painful breakup far less cumbersome.

You can watch The Verge’s full video breakdown of Google Photos below.

[source:theverge]