You Can Now Delete Your Photos From Google Photos Backup Without Deleting Them Completely
Backing up is always a smart move . If your data is only stored in one place, it is not safe because it only takes one device failure to lose all that information forever. While there are many ways to back up your data, companies like Google make it easy with built-in cloud backups. Once you set it up, all the photos and videos you take will be synced to the cloud, so you won’t have to worry about losing everything if your phone dies.
While cloud backup is convenient, it’s far from the only option available to you, as you can regularly save copies of your photos and videos to an external drive. If you’re moving platforms from, say, Android to iPhone, and prefer to use Apple services rather than Google, storing all that data on Google’s servers doesn’t make much sense either. Speaking of which: Maybe you just don’t want to trust Google with all the media you’ve taken over the years and would like to take back the data you’ve already shared.
The problem is that it was difficult to separate photos and videos from a Google Photos backup without also deleting those items from the device you’re using, which defeats the purpose entirely. The “best” workaround was to use a separate device or browser than the one you’re using , which is more of a hassle than it should be.
That’s the whole point of Google’s Unback Up Device feature. The company first announced this back in December , allowing users to delete any photos and videos from the cloud if those photos and videos are already on the device in question. The feature was first available on iOS (perhaps as a solution for iPhone users who accidentally uploaded their media to Google Photos ), but Google is now rolling out the feature for Android users as well . Now, no matter what platform you use Google Photos on, you can undo the backup while still keeping all your photos and videos.
How to Cancel a Google Photos Backup
If you want to delete your photos and videos from your Google Photos backup without deleting those photos and videos locally from your device, follow these steps: First, open Google Photos on your iPhone or Android. Next, tap your profile picture or initial, then go to Photo Settings > Backup .
Scroll down and select Cancel backup for this device . Here, tap the box next to “I understand that my photos and videos on this device will be deleted from Google Photos,” then tap “Delete Google Photos Backup.”
Google says that once you make this decision, backup will automatically turn off on the device you’re using. So make sure you have a plan to back up these items in the future . Let’s say you have a Pixel phone and you decide to undo the backup: now those photos and videos only exist on that Pixel. If you break your phone or it just dies spontaneously ( which does happen ), you’ll lose those memories forever.