PlayMemories Online Reviews

Just got a Sony a5000 and spent the last hour trying to transfer a few test photos via WiFi. Everything about PlayMemoriesOnline is horrible. From the clunky, outdated, and laggy UI to the entire functionality of it. It boggles my mind that PlayMemoriesOnline is supposed to be supported by Sony.

Like many other reviewers, the camera and iPhone would not connect at all despite my phone being connected to the cameras WiFi. The camera would stay stuck on “connecting...” while the Playmobile app home screen would do absolutely nothing.

After an hour of reading through the help section of Sony’s website to no avail, I finally discovered that there was an alternative to this trash. I downloaded the Imaging Edge Mobile app that’s also by Sony which allowed me to transfer files instantly as well as use the smart phone control app.

Here’s how to transfer images:
From your camera: select the image you’d like to transfer > menu > wireless > send to smartphone > select on this device > this image/all images (the screen will load to WiFi standby)

From your smartphone: connect to the camera WiFi > open the imaging mobile app > select your camera (should be an orange button that says start) and VOILA! Automatic transfer within seconds.

But full disclosure, the imaging edge mobile UI is no better than PlayMemories but at least it does what it’s supposed to do, and quickly. PlayMemories is garbage and will be going to my app trash immediately.

I found out that the PlayMemories app is only social and PlayMemoriesOnline for transfers is named sony imaging edge mobile. This is the one to use for transfers images from camera to iphone or other mobile devices. Saying that about this application I tried to use but didnt make sense for me. I use Lightroom for the share and album organizing so I am not sure it is for me. I love transfer my pictures to my phone and that was the reason I was using the legacy one. I got frustrated when I changed my phone and the new application PlayMemories didn't allow to import images on the phone. I kept the old phone for several weeks until upgraded the OS. Then none of the phones could get the images from the camera. I tried to find a third party solution until i got PlayMemoriesOnline mention above imaging edge mobile. Is basically the same old PlayMemories. Hopefully this helps. I gave the one rating because I was not able to use what it was for me. I noticed some others reviewers have the same issues.

You have got to be kidding me. This is SONY for gods sake. All I want to do is transfer photos from this $3000 camera to my smartphone. The camera has wifi and Bluetooth but don’t think for one second you can send over a photo! No sir! That is BEYOND THE TECHNOLOGICAL LIMITS of the Sony corporation. You need PlayMemoriesOnline! What is PlayMemoriesOnline you ask?! Well first you will need to sign in with your PlayStation account login, then it wants access to all your photos and will ask you over and over again for them. The default is to upload ALL of your photos to their cloud, like I need another cloud with all of my pictures just floating around. Then when you go to the camera and select “connect to smartphone” PlayMemoriesOnline goes blank and you can go f*%k yourself because you aren’t going to get photos on your phone unless you plug it in to you computer and transfer them over just like I could on my decade old canon T4i! What a joke! Hire a programmer for a week and fix this garbage.

PLEASE? I have no idea what the purpose of PlayMemoriesOnline is, and if it represents the previous playmemories app, that’s just shameful. I have had the same Sony camera for a couple of years and I used to love how easy it was to wirelessly transfer photos from my camera to my phone in a matter of seconds. I recently got a new phone and when I went to PlayMemoriesOnline Store I saw there is a newer version of PlayMemoriesOnline. I was wrong to think it was a new and improved version. It’s very confusing to use and has no way of transferring photos to my phone. I spent an embarrassing amount of time researching ways to make this work and ultimately had no luck. I will now be plugging my camera into my computer when I want to make a transfer. This defeats the WiFi feature on the camera and the other settings that are designed to transfer to my phone. How does such a large company downgrade like this? Please just change it back to the older version.

We purchased a bike for my son this morning so I happily recorded all the videos on our Sony camera, thinking I’d just redownload PlayMemoriesOnline and quickly upload for our family to see (since we live across the country)
What?! What?! What? I thought maybe I was doing something wrong so I’ve searched, but I literally can’t figure out how to get my photos from camera to phone like I used to before. PlayMemoriesOnline appears to serve a completely different purpose, vs just being an upgrade to the old app. How is this the same app? They should be completely separate.
I’m so confused. If doing such an overall why would there be no directions. Is it just not possible anymore?
I synced thinking that was all that needed to be done, but now it’s pulled from my phone photos to PlayMemoriesOnline which is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever experienced with an app before.
I typically don’t review apps because you get what you get, but this is awful. I’m so confused.

Would be zero stars if that was possible. Just as another reviewer said.....what is the purpose of PlayMemoriesOnline? How do I get the photos off my camera now?! Seriously who is in charge of this at Sony?! I just spent an hour trying to figure this out and no luck. It used to be simple clicks with the old app and instantly the pics would end up on my iPad. The most disappointing thing is the Sony website which was updated in Jul 2019 still has the instruction using the old PlayMemories app which is apparently no longer, can’t be found on my devices or in PlayMemoriesOnline Store. Come on Sony you are better than this or at least I thought you were. Get your stuff together!

And let’s be honest no one is using your app to organize photos.....your sole function should be to find the easiest way to get the photos off the camera and on to the computer, tablet or phone. That is it. If that is not easy you won’t be selling many cameras.

I am actually not happy I even hauled this camera on my backpacking trip because the other guys were able to upload their photos instantly to the shared album and I am stuck here with them stuck in the camera.

Again Sony you are better than this.....do you guys beta test anything before rolling it out? Do you even know what your customers want? Very disappointing.

My Sony Nightshot told me I could download PlayMemoriesOnline and use it to control my camera. Sounds like an amazing idea, right?? Make it easier for short films in the time of Covid when you’re writer director AND actor AND crew. HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! I couldn’t even sign into PlayMemoriesOnline because even though I’m on an IPHONE and downloaded it FROM THE APPLE APP STORE the format is COMPLETELY wrong. It doesn’t fit on my phone screen and is not accurately responsive to touch and drag. Aside from that, from what I can tell, PlayMemoriesOnline doesn’t even do what I need it to do; what SONY TOLD ME it’s supposed to do. And it’s somehow affiliated with PlayStation? I need a PlayStation ID to sign in to use my video camera? What the actual heck, Sony???? Lies and glitches and incompatibility don’t even waste your time with this. As it is I’m mad I can’t get a time refund for the ten minutes I spent trying to make it work. Smh.

Tried to use “Play Memories mobile” to transfer photos from my A7R2 to my iPad which I’ve done numerous times. I couldn’t find PlayMemoriesOnline anywhere on my iPad. It was gone so I searched online and found this one which is not at all the same. Turns out Sony invisibly changed “Play Memories Mobile” to “Imaging Edge Mobile” (which was still on my iPad and still works great for transferring).

PlayMemoriesOnline is confusingly called “Play Memories Online” is not like the similarly named predecessor. It looks instead to be an attempt to compete with the likes of a google Photos? Auto Sync all my photos and community sharing? Absolutely no thanks. PlayMemoriesOnline has nothing to due with connecting your Sony Camera to iOS devices. It’s a photo library app and not a good one at that. Just writing this review to save others who want to transfer their files some time.

This is the first time in my life that I have ever gone to the trouble of reviewing an app. But PlayMemoriesOnline is so terrible, and so infuriating to even try to use, that I had to write a review. You’ll find that you can’t even log on. The steps that you have to go through to “prove that you’re not a robot“ are seemingly endless. And when the program will not except the proof that you try to supply that you’re not a robot, you’ll find yourself walking out and then trying again. And then the same thing will happen. And it will drive you insane. You might even think that you’re on candid camera show, and there are crowds of people watching you to see if you eventually you’ll go crazy. It’s amazing to me that the designers haven’t fix this yet. Or at a minimum that I haven’t pulled it off the market, given how totally inoperational it is.

I re-downloaded PlayMemoriesOnline to upload my pics from my camera to my phone so I can share with my family but after several failed attempts on multiple different devices I found that the feature is no longer available?? Not sure how I am supposed to get pics of my family to share with everyone. Many new laptops including the new PacBool Pro I own don’t have SD card slots for my SD card so now I have to get a converter to get my photos off my camera. Makes no sense. Please bring back the other feature of allowing us to transfer boots via WiFi.

I will delete PlayMemoriesOnline as soon as I finish this review because it’s basically another version of photos that comes with your iPhone. Saving photos to the cloud and creating “collections” otherwise known as ALBUMS in your iPhone.

I literally lugged around my heavy a6000 Sony camera in PATAGONIA for EIGHT days on a backpacking trip. Just got back to civilization and I literally cannot sync any of these pictures to my phone - what is the point of PlayMemoriesOnline or even one of the major selling points of this camera if I can’t access these pictures unless I plug it into a computer??? The pictures are stuck in this camera and this is the worst app “upgrade” - in fact this “upgrade” fully nullifies the “send to smartphone” functionally of the camera. Whoever is the product manager of PlayMemoriesOnline should get fired - nobody is using PlayMemoriesOnline to sort their non-camera smartphone pictures. PlayMemoriesOnline is a dumpster fire. I never ever write reviews but this product decision is warrants a HUGE warning to all future Sony prospective buyers. Unless they upgrade, STAY AWAY.

I had a Sony camera several years ago and used the old play memories app to easily transfer pictures using the built in wi-fi feature. I recently got a new Sony camera and tried to get it set up to transfer pictures, only to find this new app that doesn’t work. 90% of the time, it won’t even let me sign in to PlayMemoriesOnline , just says “cannot connect to the server” and when I do miraculously get logged in and connect my phone to the camera’s SSID like normal, nothing happens in PlayMemoriesOnline on the phone and there’s no way to transfer any pictures. Looking through the reviews, I see countless other people having the same or similar problems, and it is ridiculous that Sony hasn’t made it a priority to address a problem like this that is doubtless affecting a significant portion of their customer base.

Okay so I have a Sony mirrorless and I can’t get army videos off of my device. I can’t wirelessly transfer them, can’t get the computer program to work, can’t sign in on my computer because it’s broken, the new app doesn’t work for videos as well either in app or computer. Let what are y’all doing right now for all these people with videos that they need?

Seriously Sony you’re a powerhouse and can’t get an app to work. I guess I will be leaving the Sony family all together unless you can honestly get this fixed and provide a support service that works. I hate leaving bad reviews but honestly everyone needs to know to NOT BUY SOMY CAMERAS.

Addition: Went to your support website and the catcha is freaking broken. Come on I can’t reach you at all now. So this is the public bashing.

This really is the worst app I’ve ever used. I’ve been trying for an hour to get a single photo from my Sony A7iii to my iPhone, and still no luck. A big reason I got this camera is to be able to easily send photos between devices, but so far I can’t. PlayMemoriesOnline is not optimized for mobile use, and during the sign up process, you have to constantly turn your phone sideways and scroll around to try to get the different fields in view and scroll around trying to find the “submit” button. I’m actually shocked at how horrible the user experience is, and I hope Sony/PlayStation fix these issues soon, or they are totally shooting themselves in the foot. The new mirror less cameras are awesome, but they need phone apps to support it on the mobile side. BIG THUMBS DOWN!!!

What the hell is your problem?

Who actually thought it would be a good idea to completely take away the functionality and purpose of this entire app? Were they praised for this choice? Fired? Reprimanded? Kicked out of the company hopefully.

PlayMemoriesOnline used to be able to directly upload photos from the camera to the cell phone. It also used to be used as a remote control for the camera, and show you a preview of what your camera sees here on PlayMemoriesOnline .

I haven’t used PlayMemoriesOnline in over a year, and just downloaded it to my iPad to use for a photo shoot today, and found out that the entire purpose I bought this camera in the first place is now gone.

I’m so incredibly angry at Sony right now I don’t even know what to do. I can’t return my camera, and I sure as hell can’t yell at some poor people on a customer service line that had nothing to do with this idiotic decision.

If PlayMemoriesOnline doesn’t get fixed to its original functionality I’m never purchasing a Sony product again. This is the worst business decision Sony could’ve ever made.

My Sony workflow was perfect until PlayMemoriesOnline came along. I own quite a few Sony cameras and I generally take photos and videos; thereafter, I cut and edit on my phone. PlayMemoriesOnline has rendered the camera’s native firmware sharing apparatus useless. My camera will successfully connect to my phone via wi-fi but there is no landing pad for the media to land. The onboarding is lousy and I don’t see how I can make this current app a utility in my daily life. I wanted to like it, because the Sony brand has generally been consistent with it’s patrons; nevertheless, PlayMemoriesOnline feels like a market response and divergence to the loyalist consumer. I honestly feel like selling off all my cameras because I can no longer produce content in a reasonable manner.

I have tried creating an account on playmemories for like an hour now and I keep getting “server timed out” constantly and having to re enter all of my information over and over. Once it finally went through, I had to verify my email and another nightmare began as every time I clicked “verify now” on my email it said the URL is no good and would have to resend the email again for a new one. Needless to say I never got it to work after endless attempts. If you can’t even make it to the actual app, I can only imagine how awful PlayMemoriesOnline runs itself. I was excited about switching to Sony from Canon but this is disappointing. Hopefully this is corrected soon.

It is Unbelievable that a Company as Big as Sony can Have an APP that is Absolute Trash!!! 100% TRASH!!
I love my Camera, but connecting my Camera to my phone is IMPOSSIBLE with PlayMemoriesOnline!
I tried to set up an Account but already had one and I was locked out indefinitely.
I have had my camera 2 years and have tried to set up and use PlayMemoriesOnline without success. This being the second time I've tried it thinking I found new information to make it work... Didn't get very far. This should be so Simple yet it's a nightmare.
The fact that PlayMemoriesOnline has not been Fixed or Improved in 2 years wants to drive me to Buying a Nikon, Maybe the Care about Customers and Supporting Their Products.

I’ve seen months of 1 star reviews. Absolutely shameful that it is not fixed. You are destroying your customer base.

I’ve a Sony camera for the last 5 years and always used PlayMemories to quickly and easily download my photos to another device.

Recently (yesterday) I upgraded to a $2k+ Sony camera. I took a couple of test shots of my living room. What? Where is PlayMemories? There is a new app, and it crashes or hangs without loading pictures. So basically you are trying to sell a premium camera in 2019 without WiFi access. That is a non-starter. I’ll be returning my camera, unfortunately, because I liked its features, but I simply can’t have a WiFi inaccessible camera.

The new app says I have an account but won’t let me reset my password. All I want to do is get my pictures off the camera on to my iPad. I don’t want to have to log in to Sony’s app just to get my pictures. I’m considering selling my Sony and going back to Nikon.

After I finally got this working I realized that it was uploading all my photos into “Sony’s cloud”. I certainly didn’t ask for that. All I want to do is move some photos to my iPad. I already use other applications to manage my photos. I certainly don’t want Sony managing my images given their “sterling” data security record - just google “Sony data breach” to find out more.

Tell changed he name of PlayMemoriesOnline everyone uses to transfer photos from camera to phone, and now they have the same name from the previous app for a completely different app, just to fit their needs... gain access to “ALL” you photos - I’m all set with that! I went to find out they gave a completely different name to the one to transfer photos, and never let anyone know, but yet stole the name of the old one everyone used for the new app - I don’t like that. So tired of companies wanting all you data and not focusing about what the customer needs, this a clear example of that... terrible!