How to Disable Google Photos Sync to Free Gmail Storage?
This post is specifically created if you want to disable Google photos sync or stop uploading photos from your phone’s gallery to your Google Photos account.
You must be tired of seeing the “Gmail storage is full” warning every time you open your inbox? If your Google account storage is reaching its limit, most probably chances are that Google Photos is the main culprit.
Google Photos is a part of Google service along with Gmail, Google Maps, Google Drive, Google Duo, Google Play Music, etc. By default, Google Photos automatically backs up every photo and video that to click or record from your smartphone.
Over time, these high-resolution files consume a large portion of your 15GB free Google storage, which is shared across Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Photos.
Basically, it is an online photo storage and photo sharing service by Google to its users. This allows users to store their pictures or images clicked from their smartphones.
Why to Disable Google Photos Sync?
Whenever a user is signed in on their Android or iOS device using a Google account. By default, Google photos sync is enabled and the Phone’s Gallery photos are uploaded automatically.
Even if a user doesn’t know that the photos they are clicking from their device, it’s going automatically to their Google photos account. Lately, they come to know that all of their photos are synced.
If your Google account storage is full, you won’t be able to send or receive emails in Gmail, upload files to Google Drive, or sync your photos. The simplest way to fix this problem is by disabling Google Photos backup (sync) to stop it from consuming your storage.
Don’t worry, if you do not want Google Photos to back up or sync your gallery photos, we can tell you the easy steps by which you can disable or turn off Google photos sync.
The steps will be similar to iOS devices as well if the photos app is connected to your Google account. The following steps have been done on Android version 12 on the OnePlus device and will work with later versions as well (few option may vary). Watch the latest below video, recorded on latest Android version 15.
How to Disable Google Photos Backup on Android?
Follow these steps to turn off auto back up for Google photos from the gallery using smartphones:
Step 1. Open your Google Photos app on your Android or iOS device.
Step 2. Tap the Profile Picture Icon from the top right and you will see certain options.
Select Photos settings from the given list.
Step 3. Once you get into the Google photos settings, the very first option will be for Backup or Back up & sync.
Tap on it and you will see a slider button, slide to left to turn it off.
Note: The images and photos that have been synced previously will stays in Google Photos storage.
Once the sync is disabled, that means now onwards, the Google photos app will stop uploading photos from your phone’s gallery to online storage, like here: https://photos.google.com/
In the future, if your device is connected to the internet and you make the back up & sync setting turned on. This means that all photos and images will be synced to your Google photos account automatically.
Free Up Space in Your Google Account
Disabling sync prevents future uploads, but what about the photos and videos already stored in Google Photos? To reclaim space:
Note: You should back up your Photos and videos to your system or external hard drive. Ones you back them up:
- Delete Unwanted Photos and Videos: Open Google Photos on web → Select the ones you want to delete → Tap Delete.
- Empty the Trash: Deleted photos stay in the Trash for 60 days. Go to Photos → Library → Trash and permanently delete them to free space.
- Clear Gmail Attachments: Search in Gmail for large files (use has:attachment larger:10M) and delete them, if you don’t need them.
- Manage Google Drive: Remove old files from Google Drive that you no longer need.
Removing the Google Photos App
Optional: certainly, you have turned off Google photos sync settings, but still, photos can be seen on your Google photos app on your mobile device. However, photos will not be uploaded until you turn on the photo sync settings.
If you do not want to see gallery photos on the Google photos app then you need to remove the photos app from your device.
To sum up, if your Gmail storage is full due to Google Photos, disabling the automatic backup feature is one of the quickest solutions. By stopping unnecessary uploads and cleaning up existing files, you can free up valuable space and avoid missing important emails.
Disable, Turn off or Stop Google Photos Sync Share on X
