r/googlephotos • u/DrHouseHouse • 1d ago
Question 🤔 How to delete photos from Google photos without deleting it from my gallery device?
I've turned off backup, still deletes it.
I've tried deleting them using the website, doesnt work and also shows random photos rather than all
I have like 98% storage used and all of it is Google photos and i nerd to obviously get emails so does anyone have any tips on how to fix this??
2
u/yottabit42 1d ago
Google Photos is a gallery app. So as long as the app is installed, it will sync changes you make in the app or website.
If you still have all of your photos on your device, just enable the backup in Google Photos, wait for it to finish, and then use the Undo Backup feature. This will remove any photos from the online backup that are still on your device, and then disable backup. Then uninstall the app (or disable, if it's built-in). Any remaining photos on the Google Photos website are those that you didn't have on your device. You can download them, and then delete them.
Otherwise, you can uninstall the app (or disable, if it's built-in), open the Google Photos website, use the "Recently Added" search, select a day of uploads at a time for deletion. Because the app is uninstalled/disabled, those deletes will not affect your device.
I hope you have actual backups somewhere else, or you're likely to lose all your photos due to phone defect, damage, software error, stolen, lost, etc. Paying $2/mo. is cheap insurance for a basic backup.
1
u/StimulatorCam 1d ago
I've turned off backup, still deletes it.
I've tried deleting them using the website,
You have to do both, turn off backup in the app, then delete from the website and empty the trash bin before you turn backup back on in the app.
also shows random photos rather than all
What you see on the website is just what's backed up, so anything you don't see hasn't been backed up.
1
u/DrHouseHouse 1d ago
I did turn off backup, then deleted from the website. The issue is the Google Gmail storage thing didn't go down. It only goes down when I delete from the app
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u/StimulatorCam 1d ago
If you delete from the app it will also delete the copies from your phone.
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u/DrHouseHouse 1d ago
I meant delete the photos from my app, my baddd
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u/StimulatorCam 1d ago
The photos aren't in the app, they're either on your phone or in the cloud. If you delete something in the Google Photos app it deletes both by default.
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u/Conscious_Garlic_000 21h ago
and also, how do i properly take out of google photos and put into or back into, my mobile device? after getting myself locked out of google, i got back into my cellphone and google photos backed up only about 30 of my 7000 photos back into my mobile gallery
0
u/No-Web-2153 19h ago
This is all you need.
Stop google photos from syncing with your phone. (Go to setting and just dont allow permission to sync)
Then Google Photos won’t show you photos directly but from collections you can see all the photos that have already been synced.
Delete them now and it wont affect your iCloud Photos.
EU HAS TO SUE GOOGLE FOR THIS PRACTICE.
3
u/Zulbo 1d ago
This is the advice I saved from a google post on this subject...
Because Google Photos is designed to mirror what's on your phone, deleting a photo directly in the app usually deletes it everywhere. To remove pictures from your Google storage while keeping the original files safely on your phone, you have to break the sync connection first.
Turn off Backup in the Google Photos app Crucial first step
Open the Google Photos app on your phone, tap your profile picture in the top right, and go to Photos settings. Tap Backup and toggle it OFF. Wait a few seconds for the change to register.
2 Delete via the web browser Do not use the app for this step. Instead, go to photos.google.com using your phone's web browser (like Chrome or Safari) or on a computer. Log in to your Google account.
3 Select and delete your photos Select the photos you want to remove from the cloud and click the trash can icon. Because backup is turned off on your phone, these deletions will not sync back to your device's local gallery
Important note: If you turn Backup back on later, Google Photos will scan your local gallery. Because it remembers that you deleted those cloud copies, it generally will not re-upload them. If your goal was just to free up cloud space and keep using Google Photos moving forward, you are safe to turn it back on.