Google One Storage Questions

Topic

New Reply

Hello! Not sure just where to ask this, so moderators, please feel free to move it!

Does anyone know anything about Google One storage of photos? I have a Gmail account, and recently got an email that I was using about half of my free allotted space of 15GB. At the bottom of my Gmail account inbox it does say “7.43 GB of 15 GB used” which I took to mean that within Gmail I had used that amount (I am a notorious saver of emails). However, when I went to one.google it showed me that most of that usage was in photos that had somehow gotten uploaded to Google One.

In truth, I didn’t even know that I had a Google One photos storage account, and was quite concerned that there were photos going back 10 years stored there. Some were from my phone, which I do not keep connected to the internet, and always deny any backup of photos, and some seem to have come from my laptop storage.

My question isn’t so much how they got there – I am wondering if anyone might know if I can download those photos to an external hard drive and delete them from Google One – but not have them automatically deleted from my phone or computer the next time I am online?

I would like to reduce the amount of storage that Google says I am using with all of those pictures, but I do not want them to be deleted anywhere but within Google One.

Thanks for any help anyone might offer.

1 user thanked author for this post.

opti1

Reply | Quote

Replies

Do you have Google Photos app installed and synced to Google photos ?

Check Google Photos site.

1 user thanked author for this post.

LHiggins

Reply | Quote

Thanks for the reply. I do have Google Photos on my phone, and some of the pictures are ones that are on the phone, but not all. I have it set not to sync and occasionally it will ask me if I want to backup the pictures – which I never do. I also don’t keep the phone connected to the internet – it is only online occasionally, but I guess there must be something happening that is allowing some photos to be uploaded?

In any case – what will happen if I do download those photos to an external hard drive and then delete them from the Google storage? The next time I happen to connect to the internet, will those be deleted from my phone as well? I just want to reduce that amount of storage and still keep the photos that I have.

And it is an Android phone – Moto G Power.

I’ll take a closer look at my settings, but I never intentionally allow for uploads or syncing.

Thanks for the help!

ETA: OK, I did just look through the settings and on the Power it did appear that some kind of backup was turned on. Sorry – I was sure it was off (does it turn itself on??). In any case, I’ll keep an eye on it and see if it happens again. Meanwhile, I plan to “experiment” with trying to download, save and delete the occasional photo and see what happens.

Thanks and sorry for the misinformation.

Reply | Quote

LHiggins wrote:

will those be deleted from my phone as well?

If the sync is on deleting from Google photos will delete from your Android device and vice versa, deleting from phone will delete from Google photos.

The same does for your PC if it has Google photos sync or Android – PC sync.

2 users thanked author for this post.

LHiggins, opti1

Reply | Quote

LHiggins wrote:

I also don’t keep the phone connected to the internet

This isn’t possible AFAIK. The phone always has access, either via your phone provider or wifi.

If you put the  phone in plane mode it will not have access, but it won’t work as a phone either.

cheers, Paul

1 user thanked author for this post.

LHiggins

Reply | Quote

Paul T wrote:

This isn’t possible AFAIK. The phone always has access, either via your phone provider or wifi.

I have my mobile data set to never connect, and generally use my home wifi only when needed. I think this is where the problem started. I occasionally do need to use the wifi and with that setting turned on, it would upload pictures. As I said – I was pretty sure that feature was turned off – it definitely is now. I guess since I’ve made sure (?) that the sync and auto upload is turned off, it shouldn’t just upload at will.

 

1 user thanked author for this post.

Paul T

Reply | Quote

All of this begs the question – is there a good alternative to the Google Photos app for the phone? If I didn’t have/use that – then there would be no issue with the syncing, correct?

 

Reply | Quote

LHiggins wrote:

is there a good alternative to the Google Photos app for the phone?

I haven’t found one.
I use an iPhone and iPad and use Google Photos over iCloud for synced photos backup.

1 user thanked author for this post.

LHiggins

Reply | Quote

Thanks! Guess I’ll need to make sure that the sync isn’t turned on and check periodically that nothing has been uploaded.

Reply | Quote

Alex5723 wrote:

If the sync is on deleting from Google photos will delete from your Android device and vice versa, deleting from phone will delete from Google photos.

This raises the question: How on earth do I prevent syncing photos across devices when all I want to do is to back them up from my phone to Google One?

I’m running Photos v7.3 on Android 15, on Pixel 7a.

The only option I see after searching and deep diving settings is to turn off BOTH Backup AND Sync which is not what I want to do. I want to keep Backup and turn off Sync.

I’m not the only one. You can spend hours searching only to find out-dated ‘solutions’ and many, many others who also just want to keep photos on their phone and are frustrated with not being able to find a way to turn off only Sync.

Has anyone found a way to do this?

(One of the funniest comments I’ve ever read is in a Reddit thread on this topic of turning off Sync but I can’t copy it here because of the many f-bombs and other picturesque expletives used.)

 

1 user thanked author for this post.

LHiggins

Reply | Quote