Google Photos and Drive are Separating Today

Today’s the day: As promised, Google is no longer automatically syncing photos between its Drive and Photos services.

“Many of you store your photos and videos on both Google Drive and Google Photos, which keeps them safe and easy to access,” the Google Photos blog announced last month. “We’ve heard feedback that the connection between these services is confusing, so next month, we’re making some changes to simplify the experience across Drive and Photos.”

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As of today, new photos and videos added to Google Drive will no longer automatically appear in Photos. Likewise, new photos and videos added to Google Photos will not be added to the Photos folder in Drive too. So, you delete photos and videos in Drive, they will not be removed from Photos. And vice versa.

You can still copy photos between the two services, and Google’s Backup & Sync desktop client now supports uploading photos to Google Photos in addition to Drive. But when you copy photos from Google Photos to Drive, or vice versa, they will take up twice as much storage space, since there will be one copy in both services. (Note the change in how deleting works above.)

There’s also a new Send to Photos option in Google Drive on the web that will let you copy (and thus duplicate) photos between the services.

You can learn more at the Google Support website.

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Conversation 21 comments

  • dontbe evil

    10 July, 2019 - 10:53 am

    <p>usual google untrustful behavior with their service, glad I don't use any</p>

    • Winner

      10 July, 2019 - 12:11 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#440938">In reply to dontbe_evil:</a></em></blockquote><p>See the other article on MS shutting down remix3D.</p>

      • dontbe evil

        10 July, 2019 - 2:32 pm

        <blockquote><em><a href="#440985">In reply to Winner:</a></em></blockquote><p>See the other article on MS maybe shutting down remix3D.</p><p><br></p><p>fixed</p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p><br></p>

      • Stooks

        10 July, 2019 - 2:53 pm

        <blockquote><em><a href="#440985">In reply to Winner:</a></em></blockquote><p>Who cares….NO ONE even knew what remix3D was, let alone use it.</p>

        • paulkocz

          Premium Member
          10 July, 2019 - 6:54 pm

          <blockquote><em><a href="#441023">In reply to Stooks:</a></em></blockquote><p>Really. Used at least weekly by students in the school that I work in. I also used it regularly in PowerPoint presentations. Gave it a wow factor with easy to use models from remix3d. Maybe word choices like "very few" might be more appropriate than blanket statements. Just because you didn't use it or people that you know didn't, doesn't mean "NO ONE" used it.</p>

  • djross95

    Premium Member
    10 July, 2019 - 11:13 am

    <p>I don't see the rationale for this at all, and now it's more confusing than ever. Google seems to have lost its way of late…</p>

    • wbhite

      Premium Member
      10 July, 2019 - 11:33 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#440941">In reply to djross95:</a></em></blockquote><p>Agreed, I'm having a hard time figuring this out. I use both services but have never seen any overlap (e.g. I don't see my photos in Drive). How does this impact me?</p>

      • ivarh

        Premium Member
        11 July, 2019 - 3:28 am

        <blockquote><em><a href="#440969">In reply to wbhite:</a></em></blockquote><p>There is (was) a option in Google drive that mapped your Google photos to a folder called photos on your Google drive</p>

  • obarthelemy

    10 July, 2019 - 11:54 am

    <p>Dang, I'm lost.</p><p><br></p><p>How can I be 100% sure I can delete the Google Photos folder from Google Drive w/o losing any pictures ? I've got thousands of them, is there an easy way to make sure all pictures and videos are indeed in pure gPhotos before I delete them from gDrive's Photos ?</p><p><br></p><p>Also, will Photos get a file/folder UI, because the "whole mess+albums" UI ain't doing it for me.</p>

    • Winner

      10 July, 2019 - 12:12 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#440975">In reply to obarthelemy:</a></em></blockquote><p>I would never rely on any cloud service exclusively for important data. You ought to have a local copy of those photos if they are important to you.</p>

      • obarthelemy

        10 July, 2019 - 12:52 pm

        <blockquote><em><a href="#440986">In reply to Winner:</a></em></blockquote><p>Of course I do, to the best of my knowledge, but double-checking is a pain:</p><p><br></p><p>1- all my home pics and vids are uploaded a) manually, to my Synology NAS and b) automatically from my phone's app, to Google Photos</p><p>2- CloudSync on my NAS then re-downloads my whole gDrive folder to the NAS. This used to include gDrive's gPhoto folder, now that's dead, and I don't think Synology's CloudSync can backup from gPhoto directly.</p><p>3- This and other irreplaceable stuff from the NAS (my own data, my Google TakeOut,..) is backed up yet again to a couple of rotating USB drives that are stored away, off-line.</p><p><br></p><p>This doesn't solve the 2 issues:</p><p>1- no easy way to double-check what's actually in Google Photo</p><p>2- no fille/folder UI à la Google Drive</p><p>3- bonus, no Synology backup ?</p>

        • Vincent Legrand

          10 July, 2019 - 4:42 pm

          <blockquote><em><a href="#440989">In reply to obarthelemy:</a></em></blockquote><p>Check DSfile app from synology. They have a photos backup section. So you don't have to do it manually to your synology nas</p>

          • obarthelemy

            10 July, 2019 - 5:14 pm

            <blockquote><em><a href="#441062">In reply to atvinnys:</a></em></blockquote><p>Thanks for that. I'm an idiot: I had that app, but was only using it to get the occasional file from my NAS. DCIM folder autobackup set !</p>

  • david.thunderbird

    10 July, 2019 - 12:10 pm

    <p>Leave it to gooGle to take a <strong style="color: rgb(106, 106, 106);">semi</strong><span style="color: rgb(84, 84, 84);">-</span><strong style="color: rgb(106, 106, 106);">confusing</strong><span style="color: rgb(84, 84, 84);">&nbsp;i</span>and make it excruciatingly confusing. </p>

    • Stooks

      10 July, 2019 - 2:48 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#440983">In reply to david.thunderbird:</a></em></blockquote><p>And then cancel it…..or change the name to YouTube Drive. You know to go along with….YouTube, YouTube Red, YouTube Music, YouTube Gaming, YouTube TV or YouTube Premium.</p><p><br></p><p>Once they change it they will use, Allow, Duo, Android Messenger and Hangouts to let you know. Possibly Inbox or Gmail….or Google +. Whatever works, as long as they can SUCK as much data from you as possible.</p>

  • Philotech Mueller

    10 July, 2019 - 12:10 pm

    <p>Paul (and all others)</p><p>Do you know a way to DOWNload photos from Google Photos other than through Takeout? I am looking for a way to sync all my photos taken with my phone to my computer or my NAS / Home server. </p>

    • Stooks

      10 July, 2019 - 2:44 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#440984">In reply to Philotech:</a></em></blockquote><p>The Google drive client, now called Google Backup and Sync does exactly that. It will Sync your folders, both ways. The exact same way OneDrive or any other cloud storage sync app works.</p><p><br></p><p>I sync OneDrive to 5 computers, one Mac and 4 Windows 10 machines. The Mac gets backed up using Backblaze, and my home desktop computer gets backed up to a USB drive, using the builtin in Windows 10 backup. Both backup programs backup the local copy of OneDrive. I have 8 copies of that data, two in the cloud (OneDrive/Backblaze) 5 computers and one USB Drive.</p><p><br></p><p>Use the Google client, to Sync your photos from Google Drive to your computer. Then backup/copy/rsync them to your NAS. Lots of free tools to do that.</p>

      • Philotech Mueller

        10 July, 2019 - 3:21 pm

        <blockquote><em><a href="#441016">In reply to Stooks:</a></em></blockquote><p>Thanks, but I was looking for a way to sync from Google Photos to my Mac or NAS, not from Google Drive (which I do of course)</p>

    • obarthelemy

      10 July, 2019 - 5:57 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#440984">In reply to Philotech:</a></em></blockquote><p>I've looked everywhere today, couldn't find a way.</p>

  • DaddyBrownJr

    10 July, 2019 - 12:44 pm

    <p>It's amusing to me that anyone sees this as confusing. It is about as straight-forward as it gets. </p>

  • jwr375

    Premium Member
    10 July, 2019 - 8:25 pm

    <p>This change is happening over the coming weeks according to an e-mail I got from Google</p>

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