How do I remove photos from phone but not Google Photos?

fuzzywuzzywazzafuzzy

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Have a 128GB Galaxy S22+, storage is almost full with 36GB of photos and 40GB of video. I'd like to clear up a bunch of space but don't want to permanently delete them from Google Photos online. If I delete a photo on the phone in Google Photos app does it also delete online?
 

bkdodger2

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Deleted from gallery the regular one for Samsung and it won't delete it from Google photos ..also just make sure that you have all your folders backed up in Google photos...
 

B. Diddy

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I made you the owner of the original guest post to make it easier for you to find.

If you use the Free Up Space feature of the Google Photos app, that will automatically delete any photo or video on the phone that Google Photos knows is backed up to your Google Photos in the cloud. Otherwise, you'd have to select a photo (in the Google Photos app), tap the 3-dot menu button at the upper right, then Delete from Device. This will allow the photo backed up in the cloud to remain.
 

fuzzywuzzywazzafuzzy

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I made you the owner of the original guest post to make it easier for you to find.

If you use the Free Up Space feature of the Google Photos app, that will automatically delete any photo or video on the phone that Google Photos knows is backed up to your Google Photos in the cloud. Otherwise, you'd have to select a photo (in the Google Photos app), tap the 3-dot menu button at the upper right, then Delete from Device. This will allow the photo backed up in the cloud to remain.

This makes me wicked nervous. I feel like I've seen complaints about Free Up Space deleting from cloud as well as on device.
 

B. Diddy

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I've never had that problem. Free Up Space should not touch cloud photos at all. It should only delete photos on the device -- that's the whole idea.

If anything, I've seen some photos remain on the phone's storage even after I did the Free Up Space command (and I'm sure those photos were already backed up, so Google Photos should've gotten rid of them). This might be related to photos that were edited somehow.
 

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