Delete photos from phone only

[mikezw]

Have new phone which suddenly has all photos from my tablet. Don't want to take up storage on phone but when go to delete says it will delete from all devices. How resolve?

 

[Christian Bethancourt]

Use google photos app, upload to your drive and delete from your device, it will let you choose which folders to upload

 

[LeoRex]

If you are looking at the in Google Photos, you might be looking at the library you have stored in the cloud. Go in the menu and select device folders. You should see the locally stored photos there. In there, if you select a picture, look in the three dot menu next to the trash bin. There should be a 'delete from device' option. That will leave the cloud stored copy alone.

If that makes you nervous, you can always select 'Free up space' from the main menu. That automatically goes through any locally indexed pictures and deletes anything that has been backed up to Google photos, leaving the backed up copy alone.

 

[mikezw]

Sorry guys I'm 71 and not very familiar with a lot of terms/usage. Christian when you say use "google photos app" which device (desktop, tablet, phone) are you referring to? and what does upload to drive mean?
Leorex, again on which device - I can't find "device folders" anywhere. On my (new) phone there isn't a 3 dot menu next to the trash.
I did experiment with deleting some photos on my new phone and they have disappeared from desktop, tablet and old phone - not very encouraging as I don't want/need all those photos on my phone.

 

[LeoRex]

Are you using the app posted below. If so, open up the settings menu by sliding from the left or click on the three horizontal lines in the top left. There, select 'Device folders'. In that window, select Camera and select a photo. On the top right you will see a trash can and vertical three dots. There, click delete from device

 

[mikezw]

Thank you for your patience LeoRex. When I go into the menu and pick device folders I just get a more or less blank screen with words "photos and videos that you take on your device are shown here"; the previous screen (before clicking on menu) has all the photos that have been synced from my tablet. If I delete any they disappear from everywhere else (tablet and desktop).

 

[Rukbat]

Before you do anything else, connect the phone to a PC. Create a new folder somewhere on the PC (your choice), maybe label it Photos, open it, go to your phone (it will appear as a drive - if it doesn't, get the driver from the manufacturer's site [you'll have to tell us which phone it is]), open it, look for a folder called DCIM and drag it to the folder you made in the PC. That way, whatever happens, you'll have 1 safe copy of the pictures.

If you have no PC, go to MEGA, register an account, and you'll have 50GB of free storage. Save your pictures there. (Deleting them from all your devices and the backup it won't delete from Mega (or from your PC if you stored them there).

 

[LeoRex]

Thank you for your patience LeoRex. When I go into the menu and pick device folders I just get a more or less blank screen with words "photos and videos that you take on your device are shown here"; the previous screen (before clicking on menu) has all the photos that have been synced from my tablet. If I delete any they disappear from everywhere else (tablet and desktop).

Oh! No, those photos you see aren't actually stored on your phone. Those are all the pictures that you've backed up and are stored on Google's servers. The default view in the photos app is your Google Photos library, which you can see anywhere.

Google Photos is not a gallery app. It's a cloud based photo/video management service with an app interface... Your confusion is probably pretty common, no need to apologize.

 

[mikezw]

Thank you everyone

 

[mikezw]

One more thing - what's the difference between photos accessed via the photos app and photos in Google Drive (of which I appear to have none)?

 

[LeoRex]

One more thing - what's the difference between photos accessed via the photos app and photos in Google Drive (of which I appear to have none)?

When you back up pictures with Google Photos, it stores them in a special container inside your Google Drive account... But those pictures and videos are kept separate from the other files in Drive. Normally, Photos will ignore any pictures that people have copied up into Drive manually, say to keep them somewhere safe. But if you toggle that setting in Google Photos, it will go in and index anything it finds in your main Google Drive account and view them inside Photos.

The same applies in reverse... Pictures backed up by the Photos service are not seen in Drive unless you choose to view them.