Anyone here use Google Photos? A dumb question....

[nile455]

I have a Samsung Galaxy s22, and I have it set so that any photo or video I take automatically gets uploaded to Google Photos. But today I noticed that whenever I delete something from my phone, it immediately gets automatically deleted from Google Photos. It's possibly been doing this all this time and I never realized it until today. I don't understand this. Isn't the point of Google Photos so that you don't have to clutter up your phone's storage?? Is this how it is by default? Is there a setting I can select where deleting something from my phone will still keep it on the cloud?

 

[LuvOrlando]

I think it always worked this way. For a long time I started to save to the Amazon Cloud in Amazon Photos as an alternative but there was no privacy because my images kept wiggling out and ending up as screensavers on all my TV's. Not that there is anything scandalous it's just not stuff I'd put on my TV, do I need to see my phone bill? Not sure what sorts of private digital photo storage might be out there now to offload from my device but the usefulness of my phone as a way to remind me of things is shrinking.

 

[DLgal]

That's not what happens on my phone. Deleting photos from my phone gallery won't delete them on my Google photos. I also have an S22.

When you say "delete off my phone" which app are you deleting from? The "phone" is the pink "Gallery" app. If you are opening the multi colored "Photos" app, that's your cloud photos.

 

[nw6675]

That's not what happens on my phone. Deleting photos from my phone gallery won't delete them on my Google photos. I also have an S22.

When you say "delete off my phone" which app are you deleting from? The "phone" is the pink "Gallery" app. If you are opening the multi colored "Photos" app, that's your cloud photos.

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This.

 

[nile455]

That's not what happens on my phone. Deleting photos from my phone gallery won't delete them on my Google photos. I also have an S22.

When you say "delete off my phone" which app are you deleting from? The "phone" is the pink "Gallery" app. If you are opening the multi colored "Photos" app, that's your cloud photos.

View attachment 761394

Yes I'm referring to the pink gallery. I go in there, delete a picture from there, then I go into Google photos and it's been automatically deleted from there as well.

 

[PalmettoPath]

Maybe there's a setting to be changed. I don't use Google photos, but I do use iCloud for my iPhone, which essentially is a back-up of your phone. So if you add a photo, it's added to the cloud. If you delete a photo, it's deleted from the cloud. The cloud is intended to be a mirror of your phone exactly, as a backup in case your phone crashes. It is not separate storage (I use my computer for that). So it sounds like right now it's a backup, mirroring your phone. Maybe there's a setting to stop it from syncing to exactly what is on your phone?

 

[Rogue1677x]

Do you have your photos backed up to your gmail account? I looked at my Google photos settings to see if I could find an answer to your question and maybe that's it. I was able to delete a photo from my phone and it's still in my photos. But, I have had the experience you are describing (sadly during a trip to Disney).

 

[DLgal]

Are your photos actually being backed up? It takes sometimes about a day for them to backup to the cloud, or you can force a manual backup. Go into your Google Photos app and click on your profile to see whether the backup has been done regularly.

If you take a bunch of photos and then immediately go in and delete some, they will not have yet been backed up to Google.

Is this happening with really old photos too or just ones you have taken recently?

 

[Imzadi]

You have your Google Photos account or your phone set to "Sync." And that's what it's doing. It's syncing the photos in Google Photos with what you are doing on your phone. So, if you delete off your phone, it gets synced and deleted off Photos.

I don't use that feature because of that. I manually download all my photos to my PC and then to my back up Google Drive account and save them that way. I wouldn't want all the photos I THINK I'm storing to actually get deleted instead.

 

[sam_gordon]

You have your Google Photos account or your phone set to "Sync." And that's what it's doing. It's syncing the photos in Google Photos with what you are doing on your phone. So, if you delete off your phone, it gets synced and deleted off Photos.

I don't use that feature because of that. I manually download all my photos to my PC and then to my back up Google Drive account and save them that way. I wouldn't want all the photos I THINK I'm storing to actually get deleted instead.

I just looked through my Google Photos app settings, and there's nothing regarding "Sync". I have a choice of "Backup", then another choice to "Free up device storage".

There is a choice in Google Photos (app on phone) to "Delete From Device". It doesn't come up if you select a single photo, but if you select a day (and then turn off the photos you don't want to delete). When you select it, it says the photo will stay in the cloud.

 

[DLgal]

You have your Google Photos account or your phone set to "Sync." And that's what it's doing. It's syncing the photos in Google Photos with what you are doing on your phone. So, if you delete off your phone, it gets synced and deleted off Photos.

I don't use that feature because of that. I manually download all my photos to my PC and then to my back up Google Drive account and save them that way. I wouldn't want all the photos I THINK I'm storing to actually get deleted instead.

No, that's not how it works.

 

[nile455]

Are your photos actually being backed up? It takes sometimes about a day for them to backup to the cloud, or you can force a manual backup. Go into your Google Photos app and click on your profile to see whether the backup has been done regularly.

If you take a bunch of photos and then immediately go in and delete some, they will not have yet been backed up to Google.

Is this happening with really old photos too or just ones you have taken recently?

It's happening with old photos. I just tried it with one from two months ago.

 

[Imzadi]

No, that's not how it works.

Then they may have changed things. I haven't used it in years for storing my photos.

 

[GreatLakes]

I have an S21 and I'm not experiencing that behavior. I made sure some pictures I took today were backed up and then deleted them manually from my phone. I'm still seeing them in Google Photos.

I don't see a setting for that in either the Photos app or the Gallery app. I'm not sure if it matters but I'm paying for Google storage, not using the free version.

I also sync with Amazon which is free if you are a Prime member so I have two backup options. I can also add a third with OneDrive but I think 3 is enough (I also backup to a storage array locally).

Here is what I see as my backup settings and I took this screenshot from Google Photos after deleting it locally:


I'm not even seeing a way to automatically delete from Google when I delete from the Gallery app.

 

[DLgal]

It's happening with old photos. I just tried it with one from two months ago.

Are your photos actually backed up, up to date, when you go into Google Photos from a computer?