Discover why Google Photos keep deleted photos and explore effective strategies to address the issue. Find out how to deal with the deleted images in your Google Photos account.
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You used Free up Space in the Google Photos app (Will Google Photos delete my photos if i delete the app?) to delete photos and videos from your phone devices after they have been backed up to Google Photos. However, it’s not deleted from Google Photos because it frees up space only to delete photos and videos from your phone without affecting your Google Photos, so Google Photos keeps deleted photos even if you have deleted photos from your phone.
If you use the Free up space feature in Google Drive for desktop, that does the same trick as the above, which makes Google Photos keep deleted photos.
Google Photos not syncing correctly to delete all the photos and videos makes it keep the deleted photos.
Google Photos keeps deleted photos in the trash for 60 days. After 60 days, the photos are permanently deleted and cannot be recovered. If a photo was not backed up before deletion (e.g., it existed only locally on an Android phone), it's kept in the trash for only 30 days instead of 60.
After the period, Google Photos automatically empties the trash 60 days later, and they are gone forever and can't be recovered. You can also go into the "Trash" folder and empty it yourself at any time to permanently delete the photos immediately. These deleted photos in the trash still count against your Google storage quota until they are permanently deleted.
That depends on the way you deleted the photos. If you have backed up all the photos and videos (with Backup & Sync enabled) from your Gallery to Google Photos, and you delete photos from your phone Gallery or other third-party gallery app, Google Photos will delete the photos as well.
If they are not backed up to Google Photos (Disabled Backup & Sync), and you delete Photos from your Gallery or other third-party gallery apps, it will not delete from Google Photos.
If you delete the Photos and videos from the File Browser app, Google Photos will still keep deleted photos.
Therefore, you have to be aware of the differences between the ways you deleted. Then take appropriate ways to manage your Photos and videos on Google Photos.
How do I stop my pictures from being deleted in Google Photos when I am deleting from my Gallery? The critical key is to disable Backup & Sync. Here is how to disable Backup & Sync in Google Photos on Android & iPhone:
1. Open the Google Photos app.
2. Tap your profile picture or initial in the top right corner.
3. Select "Photos settings" (or "Google Photos settings" on iOS).
4. Tap on "Backup & sync" (or just "Backup" on iOS).
5. Toggle the switch to the "Off" position.
Once you turn this off, Google Photos will no longer automatically upload new pictures. More importantly, your phone’s gallery and the Google Photos cloud will become independent of each other. You can then delete photos from your phone without worrying about losing the copies stored in the cloud
Does Google Photos automatically delete photos? As a matter of fact, Google Photos does not automatically delete your photos and videos unless you did the deletion on Google Photos. So, reset assure to keep your photos and videos on Google Photos. Besides, you can delete from Google Photos but keep them on the device.
There are some effective ways to solve your problem, and here are they.
To make Google Photos delete the photos that delete from your Phone, you can try to manually delete the photos in the Google Photos website, here is how to manually delete photos from Google Photos:
1. Please log in to your Google Photos on photos.google.com.
2. Tap the Photos on the left, then tick the photos you’d like to remove.
3. Select the Delete icon > Move to trash to delete photos from Google Photos.
Notes:
If you sync multiple devices to Google Photos, and delete photos from one device, then you should check all the other devices if still keep the deleted photos, which might cause Google Photos keep deleted photos. So, you have to manually delete photos from Google Photos on other devices, the steps are listed below:
1. Please open your Google Photos app on your Android phone.
2. Sign in to your Google account.
3. Tap and press the photos and videos you want to delete, and select the Delete icon on the top menu.
4. Do the same on other devices including Mac and Windows if the deleted photos are still on your Google Photos.
However, even if you delete photos from Gallery on your phone, these photos are deleted in Google Photos as well. What should you do? How do I stop my pictures from being deleted in Google Photos when I am deleting them from my phone?
Just disable Backup and Sync in Google Photos on your Android device in the following steps:
1. Open the Google Photos app on your Android phone or tablet.
2. Sign in to your Google Account if you haven't already.
3. At the top right corner of the app, tap on your profile picture or initials.
4. Tap on "Photos settings" from the menu that appears.
5. In the settings menu, select "Backup and sync".
6. Toggle off the option to disable Google Photos backup.
Besides, disabling backup in the Google Photos app will also help you to delete photos from Google Photos without deleting them from your phone. If you have deleted photos from Google Photos but storage is full, click to check solutions.
The "Delete from device" option in Google Photos refers to removing the original copy of a photo from your phone or mobile device. This option is available when a copy of the photo has already been backed up and stored in the cloud. It is important to note that if you have enabled backup and sync, deleting a photo from the synced folder on your device will also delete it from the cloud storage.
How to permanently delete photos and videos from Google Photos on your Android devices or tablet:
1. Open your Google Photos app on your Android phone or tablet.
2. Sign in to your Google account.
3. Open the photo you’d like to delete, tap the three-dots icon, and choose Delete from device.
4. Hit Delete from device > Allow to confirm.
If you delete files from Google Photos by accident, you have to restore deleted photos from Google Photos.
You cannot recover permanently deleted photos from Google Photos. Once photos have been in the Trash for 60 days (or you manually empty the Trash), they are gone forever from Google's servers.
Your only chance:
If it's been less than 60 days: Your photos are still in the Trash. Just restore them from there.
To prevent Google Photos backup delete photos, it’s strongly recommended to try the powerful cloud file manager - MultCloud, which allows you to backup, sync, or transfer photos and videos from Google Photos and other 30+ clouds, including Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Workspace, OneDrive for Business, Box for Business, MEGA, iCloud Photos, or more. Then you can keep your Google Photos data safe on any cloud you’re currently using, according to the 3-2-1 backup rule.
With MultCloud, you can delete photos and videos from Google Photos directly without deleting them on your other devices. So you can delete duplicate photos in Google Photos easily.
Besides, you can share, download, preview, copy, or copy to the photos and videos in Google Photos just like the official site.
Here are the steps to backup Google Photos to OneDrive to avoid data loss with MultCloud:
1. Please apply for a MultCloud account and sign in.
2. Tap Add Cloud to add Google Photos and OneDrive separately.
3. Choose Cloud Backup on the left side, choose Google Photos as the source, and OneDrive as the target.
4. (Optional) Tap Options to enable Email and Filter, or enable Schedule to perform Google Photos automatic backup according to your needs.
Tip: Schedule and Filter are premium features, if you need them, please upgrade to enjoy all premium functions.
5. Press the Backup Now button to backup Google Photos to OneDrive directly.
Q: Why does Google Photos keep deleted photos on my phone?
A: This usually happens when you use the "Free up space" feature. This function only deletes photos that have been backed up from your phone's local storage, but the copies safely stored in the Google Photos cloud remain untouched.
Q: If I delete a photo from Google Photos, will it be deleted from my phone?
A: It depends entirely on your "Backup & Sync" setting. If this feature is on, the app is designed to keep everything synchronized, so deleting a photo from the cloud will also delete the local copy from your phone's gallery. To avoid this, you must turn off "Backup & Sync" before deleting from the web or app.
Q: Does Google Photos automatically delete my photos forever?
A: No, Google Photos does not automatically delete your photos just because they are old. However, Google will delete your content if your account becomes inactive (no sign-in for 2 years) or if you exceed your storage limit for over 2 years. They sent multiple warning emails before this happened.
Q: How can I delete photos from Google Photos but keep them on my phone?
A: You must first disable "Backup & Sync" in the Google Photos app settings. Once disabled, go to the Google Photos website on a computer or browser and delete the photos there. Or try Undo device backup to remove all photos that your phone has backed up from Google Photos cloud storage, while keeping them 100% intact on that physical device.
Q: Why did Google Photos delete my pictures from my iPhone?
A: This happens because "Backup & Sync" was turned ON. When this feature is enabled, Google Photos mirrors your actions. If you deleted a photo from the Google Photos app or website, it also deleted the original from your iPhone's gallery. To stop this, turn off "Backup & Sync" before deleting.
Q: Why do my Google Photos keep coming back after I deleted them?
A: If you have multiple devices synced to the same Google Photos account, deleting from one device does not delete from others. The photos will reappear when the other device syncs again.
Now, you must have known the reasons why Google Photos keep deleted photos in this article. Then follow the steps to fix it. And there are some other tips for you about how to delete photos from Google Photos without deleting from phone, and others for you to keep Google Photos data safe, migrate Google Photos to Dropbox or other clouds you’re currently using to prevent Google Photos from deleting photos by accident.
Google Drive
Google Workspace
OneDrive
OneDrive for Business
SharePoint
Dropbox
Dropbox Business
MEGA
Google Photos
iCloud Photos
FTP
box
box for Business
pCloud
Baidu
Flickr
HiDrive
Yandex
NAS
WebDAV
MediaFire
iCloud Drive
WEB.DE
Evernote
Amazon S3
Wasabi
ownCloud
MySQL
Egnyte
Putio
ADrive
SugarSync
Backblaze
CloudMe
MyDrive
Cubby