Photos from all folders and camera roll deleted from phone after invisible update

[Android Central Question]

I opened google photos and all of my photos from the camera roll, device folders (whatsapp screenshots) and archive have been removed. I never selected to free up space. There seems to have been an update (that I didn't authorise) to my phone as the font has changed slightly (end of september/early october). Can anyone advise why this has happened and if the photos can be restored.

Was there a recent update to android? I have a Moto g5 plus.
I really didn't free up space from my phone so I am in despair that I have lost important archived documents.

 

[Kodak2]

Have a look in Google photos bin, you should be able to restore them from there.

 

[cigarwoo]

hi (OP here), there is nothing in the bin or any other folder

 

[Kodak2]

Try uninstalling Google photos, then reinstall it and log back on.

 

[cigarwoo]

Try uninstalling Google photos, then reinstall it and log back on.

By uninstall, do you mean disable? It says it will erase all data

 

[Kodak2]

When you reinstall Google photos and log back in all data stored in Google servers will download to your account, that is if any data is still there. I have deleted Google photos data many times to regain storage, the data is returned within a few minutes.

 

[cigarwoo]

It worked for the photos that are backed up to drive however the archive photos etc that were missing are still gone

 

[Kodak2]

Good. A partial success.
Kodak2.

 

[cigarwoo]

Yeah thanks for your help. Is there no way of finding out if the update did this or getting a response from Android ?

 

[Kodak2]

I would think that's unlikely unless it had happened to a lot of users. I haven't heard of any other reports from Google photos users. Probably just bad luck on your phone.

 

[acejavelin]

Did you have backups active for your photos in the Google Photo app (it asks you the first time you open the app)?

Go to https://photos.google.com on a computer and see if they are there.