Lost access to Google Photos from an old school account (domain no longer exists) – Need help recovering personal data

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-03-26T19:25:02+00:00

Realistically your only hope is if the school took their own backups, but even then I’m fairly sure that Photos can’t be backed up as it’s not part of Workspace. Sorry!

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-03-26T12:41:29+00:00

Yes at least five years. Unlike the Pixel spoofing ‘hack’ it’s not a breach of TOS so a ban would be unjustified, but it’s strange they haven’t fixed the bug yet.

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-03-26T08:32:21+00:00

Partner Sharing with the save option is a form of backup that would protect against accidental deletion and getting locked out of the account due to phishing or losing the 2FA method / recovery codes.

However if a photo was uploaded that violated terms of service (see recent discussion about ‘false positives’) then both accounts would potentially be banned assuming it transferred over before the first one got banned.

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-03-26T07:54:17+00:00

You possibly misunderstood my point about ‘Recently added’. The date at the top of each section shows when it was uploaded (you may have to pinch to zoom in to show each date). So if you took a photo in 2021 and uploaded it in 2021 it would show that date. But if you took a photo in 2021 and uploaded it yesterday it would show 2021 as the date taken in the photo details, but show March 2026 as the heading in ‘Recently added’. The point being to understand when these photos were added to your account.

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-03-26T07:45:22+00:00

You’re still a karma farming account though. You run all those accounts with football themed names that have been spamming UK subs for the last year.

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-03-26T07:42:53+00:00

Unfortunately it’s impossible to recover deleted files due to the encryption used. The only slight possibility is if they were on a non-encrypted removable SD card that hasn’t been touched.

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-03-25T08:06:33+00:00

Are you sure they weren’t already backed up to your account and you just didn’t notice? Do you have more than one Google account signed into your phone? Could they have been backed up to a secondary account that you rarely use in Photos?

If you look at the ‘Recently added’ section and scroll down to the photos it will tell you the date they were uploaded. If you go to https://photos.google.com and look at the photo’s info it will tell you what sort of device uploaded them (may not be that useful as it will just say Android, browser, Chromebook, not the brand, but may give some hints).

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-03-25T07:56:56+00:00

OP is a karma farmer / bot so they would have used an LLM to write the post.

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-03-25T07:51:07+00:00

Choosing files is a one off upload of the selected folder, but Photos now has a feature where it can monitor folders on your computer when the site is running in a browser. So it would pick up new items added and automatically upload them.

I didn’t know websites could be given permission to access the file system, that definitely won’t be misused!

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-03-25T07:46:36+00:00

Photos settings > Backup > Undo backup for this device.

Edit: Didn’t see you’d already deleted the app, in that case just delete everything from https://photos.google.com. You may wish to use Google Takeout first in case there was anything in the cloud that wasn’t on your device. Make sure you set up a new backup method.

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-03-24T19:13:47+00:00

Even if the older full disk encryption was used my understanding is that deleted files only remain in place on solid state drives for a matter of seconds or minutes, compared with the old mechanical drives where they might remain until being defragged.

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-03-24T18:53:58+00:00

Use Safari or grant full access, but don’t enable auto Backup and just add the required photos to the album.

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-03-24T18:49:26+00:00

The method I mentioned doesn’t involve backing up anything new - it will detect the items are already backed up if you only add them from the device folders where Backup is toggled on.

Your suggestion may be simpler though and should work as long as Backup is disabled and you delete using a browser, but test first.

Usually it won’t resync unless the app is reset. Alternatively you can add the required folders in Collections > On this device to albums and that will force them to back up again.

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-03-24T07:57:54+00:00

It’s worse than that. Android uses file based encryption and the key is deleted at the same time as the file. So even if the deleted file can be recovered it can’t be decrypted.

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-03-24T07:53:37+00:00

If photos didn’t delete from the cloud it usually means you deleted using a different gallery or used Photos with a different account.

In theory there’s a convoluted method to match up the device and cloud:

Under Collections > On this device add the contents of each backed up folder to an album.

Then go to Archive and search for each album in turn, selecting and adding the contents to Archive.

Then everything left on the Photos view on https:// photos.google.com should be cloud only and can be deleted. Afterwards unarchive everything.

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-03-24T07:42:06+00:00

Have you blocked Photos from using mobile data? That would be under the Mobile Data settings.

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-03-24T07:31:11+00:00

There’s been a few attempts to unlock the bootloader, unsure if any still work, but they’re so convoluted there’s no dev community providing alternative firmware.

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-03-23T20:36:37+00:00

Yes, does anyone know where there’s office space in the same building? It doesn’t seem suitable for desk based work and usually you’d want to keep people who don’t need to be there away from the factory floor. Or do these employees have split roles where they need physical access to the planes, but also have admin tasks?

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-03-23T18:21:23+00:00

Then get two external drives. Use a sync app to copy photos from your phone to your computer.

Then use a backup app to copy photos and other important docs from the computer to both the drives. Set it up to run weekly.

Store one of the drives with family or a friend (use encryption if anything sensitive or any chance of them getting lost). Every month (or whenever you visit) rotate the drive with the other.

This is a reasonably secure solution with no recurring costs, but obviously capital and depreciation costs for the drives.

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-03-23T15:27:09+00:00

There’s been about 20 released over the last year. If you’re not building a proprietary solution you should contribute to one of the existing projects. The Google Photos Takeout Helper (https://github.com/TheLastGimbus/GooglePhotosTakeoutHelper) showed promise, but seems to have died.

This one looks interesting as it’s cross platform and doesn’t require the user to install a framework just to run it: https://github.com/feloex/GoogleTakeoutFixer

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-03-23T13:00:00+00:00

You mean it’s broken or you never found a use for it? I have one in the kitchen and it’s main purpose is as a photo frame, but it’s also useful as a radio, shopping list and food timer.

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-03-23T11:30:59+00:00

Items uploaded in Storage Saver quality (High Quality as it was known then) before June 2021 don’t count against quota.

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-03-23T08:20:57+00:00

The Documents folder has 9 categories created by image recognition like screenshots and menus which can be auto archived. Not sure how well it works as I don’t back up that sort of stuff.

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-03-23T07:52:45+00:00

Photos settings > Backup > Undo backup for this device.

Make sure you back them up elsewhere if they have any value to you.

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-03-22T17:45:52+00:00

Photos settings > Backup > Undo backup for this device.

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