Are photos in the samsung cloud cached on the phone?

[Android Central Question]

On Android 7, Samsung S6, lots of photos are shown in the gallery but not in DCIM folder. These photos are apparently held on samsung cloud. The phone has no sim and no wifi connection. How can I still see photos held in the cloud? Are they all cached on the phone? (which kind of defeats the object of cloud storage?)

 

[Kodak2]

Yep, same in Google photos.

 

[rich119]

Yep, same in Google photos.

Interesting! So if that is the case, can they be extracted directly from the phone via USB?

Maybe there is a tool to extract from the cache?

 

[Kodak2]

I think you would need to download them first.

 

[Rukbat]

They're not in any 'cache' in the phone, so there's nothing to extract them from. The thumbnails are on the phone, but when you look at the full picture, you're looking at Samsung's server. As Kodak2 said, download them, then you can copy them. (The advantage of using the Google cloud is that you can use the computer to go there and copy the picture directly.)

 

[rich119]

They're not in any 'cache' in the phone, so there's nothing to extract them from. The thumbnails are on the phone, but when you look at the full picture, you're looking at Samsung's server. As Kodak2 said, download them, then you can copy them. (The advantage of using the Google cloud is that you can use the computer to go there and copy the picture directly.)

I thought Kodak2 agreed there was a cache?

If there's no cache and the phone is not on wifi and has no sim, how am I seeing the photos in Gallery?

They don't look like thumbnails as they zoom up fine...

Is the phone using a built in sim to access the cloud despite saying there's no network?

 

[Kodak2]

No, the Google photos app is holding data which will allow you to view full size photos off line. If you clear the data and cache in Google photos you will not be able to see the photos off line until you view them on line as the data will then start to build up again. To save the photos to your pc hard drive you will need to download them first. I hope this makes sense, Google photos and possibly Samsung photos can get confusing, although I haven't used Samsung photos, but I assume that they are similar.

 

[rich119]

No, the Google photos app is holding data which will allow you to view full size photos off line. If you clear the data and cache in Google photos you will not be able to see the photos off line until you view them on line as the data will then start to build up again. To save the photos to your pc hard drive you will need to download them first. I hope this makes sense, Google photos and possibly Samsung photos can get confusing, although I haven't used Samsung photos, but I assume that they are similar.

OK so they ARE cached on the phone.

I was hoping to just drag and drop the photos out of the camera cache into a folder in DCIM.

Can I get photos off the cloud from a PC, without using the phone?

 

[Kodak2]

Not sure about Samsung photos as I don't use it. Google photos you can by downloading them first.

 

[rich119]

No, the Google photos app is holding data which will allow you to view full size photos off line. If you clear the data and cache in Google photos you will not be able to see the photos off line until you view them on line as the data will then start to build up again. To save the photos to your pc hard drive you will need to download them first. I hope this makes sense, Google photos and possibly Samsung photos can get confusing, although I haven't used Samsung photos, but I assume that they are similar.

OK so they ARE cached on the phone.

I was hoping to just drag and drop the photos out of the camera cache into a folder in DCIM.

Can I get photos off the cloud from a PC, without using the phone?

 

[Kodak2]

Not sure about Samsung photos as I don't use it. Google photos you can by downloading them first.

 

[rich119]

So if I view the cloud photos in Gallery, select all and copy to a folder, it starts to copy but just gives up.

If I select say 10 photos, then it will copy to a folder and they do appear when I browse via USB.

If I select say 100 photos, it starts to copy and then says network error! (still not connected to network of wifi).

A bit odd that apparently it can extract cloud stored photos from it's internal local cache and put them onto normal folder storage where you can get at them via USB, but not all the time and not all the photos???

(EDIT)

On closer inspection, there is a cloud icon on the photos and the photos that do copy over have a cloud and card icon, so no, the phone won't copy from local cache to normal folder storage without a network connection, despite allowing you to view the photos...

 

[Kodak2]

Sorry I can't help you with Samsung photos. Wait to see if another Samsung user picks up this thread. Even in Google photos it's not easy to download a lot of photos in one go.

I agree it's a bit daft having your photos in the cloud but still taking up internal storage. Some of these apps also behave differently on different devices and different OS.

Good luck.