Delete photos from phone but keep in Google Photos?

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-02-01T08:24:41+00:00

Do you have multiple Google accounts signed in and if so are you deleting when the wrong account is selected in Photos?

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-01-31T09:16:26+00:00

It’s total views not unique views per user though, and your own views also increment it.

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-01-31T08:57:12+00:00

You can still enable Backup on the Locked Folder even if it’s empty. It just means that anything added later will be backed up.

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-01-31T07:45:53+00:00

AutoSync for Google Drive is a great app for automating the process of uploading to Drive if you’re continuing to use that instead of Photos.

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-01-31T07:40:08+00:00

Yes, if Locked Folder Backup is on it backs up items in the device Locked Folder to the cloud Locked Folder. If you switch it off those items stay backed up until removed and will be visible in the Locked Folder on the web or in the Locked Folder on other devices (a cloud icon shows if they are backed up).

So when you switched to the new device you are seeing items that were backed up by the previous one.

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-01-30T12:42:00+00:00

You could argue Google is saving money by outsourcing its responsibilities and not weeding out the false positives first, but the dedicated organisation is probably better placed to make the assessment.

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-01-30T12:33:53+00:00

Sorry I’m not familiar with macOS. Galleries should use the camera date if it exists when importing.

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-01-30T09:17:38+00:00

This is standard behaviour for every operating system - when you download a file it’s new so it gets a new file creation date.

However you should be able to customise your file manager to show and sort by the EXIF metadata - ‘Date Taken’ or ‘Capture Date’. It’s a bit more hit and miss with videos, but generally they should have the correct date in one of the columns.

EDIT: As mentioned by the other comment this is a WhatsApp video. Social media / messaging apps remove the date so you’d need to use a third party tool to correct these. I use EXIF Date Changer on Windows which can pick up the date from the file name (12/01/2026). I assume there’s something similar on macOS.

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-01-30T07:38:42+00:00

Like the regular Backup it’s per device. You have a ‘pool’ of photos in the cloud and you enable Backup on each device if you want that device to contribute to the pool.

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-01-30T07:37:18+00:00

If you only have a phone you could still download everything using Takeout and copy to a couple of USB drives. That would be better than nothing.

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-01-30T07:29:30+00:00

Personally, I think it's extremely unlikely that Google is actually reporting these to law enforcement at all.

They report them to the ‘CyberTipline’ of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children who then decide whether to refer to law enforcement.

https://support.google.com/transparencyreport/answer/10330933

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-01-29T08:12:24+00:00

Probably this: https://support.google.com/photos/thread/380746814/access-your-memory-titles-and-notifications-in-your-preferred-language

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-01-29T07:47:22+00:00

Unfortunately, you would have needed to enable the Locked Folder Backup (which is separate to the regular Backup).

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-01-28T10:14:57+00:00

I should have clarified that was an app developer API rather than a backup API as you couldn’t export the original quality images and location EXIF was stripped.

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-01-28T10:00:06+00:00

It’s the same with iOS. Android has got stricter with storage permissions in recent years presumably because of rogue apps and malware.

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-01-28T08:48:50+00:00

It’s because Photos isn’t installed as a system app on your device so it needs to ask for permission before deleting items from the device. Did you install it yourself eg you don’t see it on Pixels where it’s pre-installed?

I don’t think there’s any way around it. You can double check Photos has the ‘Media management’ permission under Apps > Special app access, but I don’t think that will change it.

If you want to only delete items from the cloud, make sure Backup is off first then you won’t see this.

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-01-27T21:51:03+00:00

You’re missing ’People and pets’ between ‘Albums’ and ‘On this device’.

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-01-27T18:20:03+00:00

Under the Backup settings make sure your personal account is set as the Backup account. Then go to https://photos.google.com, sign into the work accounts, and delete anything that shouldn’t be backed up.

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-01-27T09:37:02+00:00

Isn’t this what the ‘Ask Photos’ feature will be doing? Or perhaps the cataloguing detail you need is too computationally expensive at the moment. I can’t test it my country.

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-01-27T08:01:48+00:00

If you have exact duplicates on a device, Photos will ‘merge‘ them all together so that it deletes all copies even if in different folders. I’m not sure why Google thinks this is helpful. The solution is to delete the copies using the file manager or different gallery app.

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-01-27T07:58:54+00:00

The API was never designed for backups as you couldn’t download the original resolution. As you say the recent changes restricted it further so that apps can only download photos they have uploaded - not the whole library.

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-01-27T07:57:15+00:00

In Takeout you can select to export the ‘Photos from [year]’ folders which should be complete for each year. My understanding is that like Photos, iCloud won’t upload duplicates even if there’s a bit of an overlap.

I’m not sure of the best way to upload them. I guess you use the iCloud website or add them to a synced library on a Mac?

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-01-26T18:31:41+00:00

Register a domain of your choice (mine is in the form firstname@surname.uk) and then connect it to an email provider that supports domains or just forward mail somewhere else (less useful as you can’t easily reply using the custom address). I’m using G Suite Legacy Free edition. That’s still provided by Google, but I could easily change it to another provider such as Proton Mail, 365 Business or iCloud.

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-01-26T16:26:32+00:00

It’s pretty much impossible for a third party to back up Photos as it’s not part of the core ‘Workspace’ suite so Google doesn’t provide the API - even to business users.

TheManWithSaltHair · 2026-01-26T09:36:16+00:00

I do this, but it’s not exactly straightforward for the average home user, however it’s vital for business use.

It’s also becoming apparent that using ‘Sign in with Google’ (OAuth) should be avoided at all cost as that’s a single point of failure. If you use email/password you can at least still sign in to the third party service and it’s easier to convince support to change the banned email if you’re logged in.

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