Question Google Photos sporadically duplicated each photo

[chawke]

Google Photos has just created a duplicate of almost all of my media, on my Pixel. It seems it has sporadically split virtually each photo/video into on-device and on-Cloud copies, whereas before the on-device/Cloud split was consolidated into each photo/video. The on-device copies are currently not being backed up to the Cloud due to storage having run out, and I want to keep it that way as I don't want a duplicate of each on the Cloud. If I manually go through and delete the duplicate on-device copies (which would, btw, take a very long time), I expect there is a high probability Google Photos will also delete the Cloud copy when it syncs due to shared metadata (I've seen Google Photos do similar automatic deletions in the past). So how can I resolve this? P.S. This is far from the first critical bug I've reported. I plan to switch back to iPhone after this, although they have their own issues, but not as bad as this.

 

[chawke]

I just witnessed all of the split photos gradually disappear from Google Photos on my phone so now both the on-device and on-Cloud copy are gone. It's showing no photos over a month ago. It seems all of the disappeared photos are still on Cloud on the desktop site so I'm backing that up now.

Another note that may be relevant. Shortly before the duplication mess occurred, I restored a few photos from the Trash. That's all I did. That may or may not have kicked this into action, and if it did, I don't know why it would, and it shouldn't. It's unacceptable that something like this happens this far into Android/Photos development.

I submitted a report to Google with all of the above info.

 

[B. Diddy]

It's not clear to me how you were trying to manage your photos in the first place. If you have the auto-backup setting turned on, then Google Photos will automatically backup photos from any folder you selected for auto-backup. The originals will remain on your phone unless you use the Free Up Space feature in Google Photos (which will automatically delete the local copies of the photos that it knows are already safely backed up in the cloud). If you only want to delete certain photos locally, then you need to select that photo in the Google Photos app, tap the menu button, then Delete From Device. (If you tap the main Delete option with the garbage can icon that shows up under the photo, that will delete the photo everywhere, including the cloud.)

Keep in mind that photos in your Google Photos cloud will show up in your phone's Google Photos app, but this doesn't mean all of those photos are downloaded to the phone. You'd have to manually select photos to download for local storage.

It might help if you showed some screenshots illustrating your concerns.