What you need to know
- Google Photos finally brings “Undo backup” to Android devices, giving them more control over their storage.
- With this, users can delete all media files that are currently on Google Photos without making them vanish from the device itself.
- iOS users received this feature back in December 2024.
Google Photos announced on Wednesday that it is finally rolling out an “undo backup” option to its mobile app on Android. This option showed up on iPhones late last year, and now it has made its way into Android devices.
In a support page detailing the change, Google stated that this option will now give users “more control over your backed up photos & videos.” This essentially means that users can delete media files that have been backed up on the Google Photos app and not worry about it vanishing from the device itself, which was usually the case until now.
This Undo device backup feature will help users free up some storage space on their cloud without worrying about losing their media files. This is for when you “might not want all of your photos on your device backed up anymore.”
However, it is important to know that once you delete your photos on Google Photos, they will also be deleted from other spaces on the cloud, like shared albums, memories, and other albums you may have created within the app. Furthermore, photos and videos within the Locked folder will be deleted from the app.
That said, here’s how you can free up some space on your Google Photos cloud with “undo device backup.”
Open the Google Photos app on your phone > tap your Profile picture or initial > Photos settings > Backup > tap on Undo backup for this device.
You will then be prompted to check a box confirming the action. After that, hit Delete Google Photos backup. Once you do this, the app will no longer store the deleted photos, and backup to the device will be turned off automatically.
In other news, Google Photos is reportedly cutting off access to automatic syncing for digital photo frames like Aura and Cozyla. This move was made in an attempt to prevent third-party apps from accessing Google Photos, boosting user privacy.