Can Delete Photos From Your iPhone Will Deleted From Google Photos Automatically?

Data storage, enough space on your iPhone to save all the important stuff is a problem faced by many of us today. Many people prefer iPhones for their excellent camera quality, and to avoid hanging a camera with their shoulders everywhere. But then storage of such a big amount of pictures and videos we take in our routine is difficult. Apple phones do not offer a socket for a memory card or a flashcard.

So we have to be careful while using our storage space. Apple offers us an alternative in the form of “iCloud”. But it requires you to buy a subscription. So here begs the question, what should be used as an alternative?

Understanding what Google Photos do?

Google photos are mainly a photo storage app, just like a regular gallery on your phone. Once you download the app, all of your photos from your inbuilt gallery will transfer to Google Photos.

You can also save your photos permanently in Google Photos by backing up. This is the actual purpose of Google Photos, to save your photos and videos by backing up and providing you some free space in your gallery. Google Photos offers you 15Gb of free space. If you need more, there are plans you can buy. The lowest is $2 per month offering you 100Gb of space. Once you have backed up, you can delete the backed-up data from your phone to make room for newly captured photos.

Useful features of Google Photos:

• Albums to organize: the App has the option to form albums just like your regular gallery.
• Editing: Google Photos offers picture and video editing features as well.
• Sharing: you can share your photos directly from the App to your contacts through email or other social media platforms.
• Backup options: Google Photos offers you three options for photo quality in which you can store your photos. Storage saver: that stores photos at 16MP and videos at 1080p. Original quality: that stores your stuff at its original quality. And Express quality: that stores photos at 3MP and videos at 480p.
• Free up space option: it helps you to free up space from your phone by deleting photos from your gallery that are already backed up and are safe in your Google Photos App.
• Google Photos and your Phone’s images gallery:

Once you download Google Photos on your iPhone, it links to your gallery and obtains data from it. This happens only when you allow excess to all photos. So all of the photos that were initially present in your inbuilt phone gallery, will show up in your Google Photos.

Now, what if you delete a picture from your gallery. It should not be deleted from Google Photos. Right?

Because people consider it as a backup app, using it for transferring data from the phone gallery to Google Photo and then clearing the gallery for new stuff. But it is not that simple. There is a complex relationship between these two photo gallery apps.

In short, there are three copies or places where your pictures will be visible. One is your phone's gallery. The second one is your Google Photos gallery that shows all the pictures present in your phone’s gallery. And the third one is the backup copy. That is stored in Google Photo App’s 15Gb storage.

What happens when you delete something from your iPhone’s gallery:

So once you have downloaded the Google Photos on your phone, you should never delete photos from your gallery instantly. Remember, your data is not backed up. It means it is the same copy of pictures that show up at both your gallery and Google Photos.

If you have not backed up your data on Google Photos, deleting it from your gallery will result in the permanent loss of all the stuff. Well good for iPhone users that they can recover it from a “recently deleted folder”.

The date is not saved in Google Photos unless you store a backup. So it would cost you all your pictures being flushed to the recently deleted folders and an empty Google Photos.

If your photos are backed up:

The main function of Google Photos is to store your data only when you allow it to backup. When you open the app for the first time after downloading, it will ask you to backup your data or not. You can also turn on backup at a later time through the settings. It will allow you to store up to 15Gb of your pictures and videos in the Cloud. This data is then stored.

Now if you delete these pictures from your phone’s gallery, it won't matter. These photos will still show up on the first page of Google Photos where all of your other gallery’s pictures are visible, with a small cloud sign at the bottom of the picture indicating that this picture is backed up. So you can say that these pictures are stored in your backup folder permanently.

Now if your iPhone is lost or you reset your phone, you don't have to worry about these backed-up pictures. You can also open google photos on your PC at photos.google.com and can view these backed-up photos there. You can also download them again on your device. So it will help you clear up some space while storing your data for you and allow you to use the free space for new pictures.

What happens when you delete photos from Google Photos:

Your Google Photos are showing the same pictures as in your gallery.

What will happen if you delete the pictures through Google Photos? Will they also be deleted from your phone’s gallery?

The answer is a bit complex here.

There are two options when you try to delete something using Google Photos. One says “delete”. The other says “delete device original”.

When you select a photo from the Google Photos gallery and click on the “delete” option, the photo will disappear from both the Google Photos gallery and also your iPhone gallery’s recent pictures. But they will be available in the recently deleted folder for 30 days (it doesn't matter if it's back up or not, deleting the picture will also delete those that are backed up but they will move to the “bin” in Google Photos)

If you click on “delete device original” (for non backed up pictures), it will be deleted from your phone’s gallery and also from Google Photos gallery. But if you do the same with a backed-up picture, it will only be deleted from the phone and not from the Google Photos gallery.

Final Thoughts:

Google Photos is a great option when you want to free up some space from your phone and also don't want to lose your photos and videos. 15Gb is free, so this is a great deal. Also, you can buy more space with just a bit of money. But when it comes to deleting the pictures, one needs to be careful about whether the pictures are backed up or not.

Deleting them without a backup will lead to a permanent loss of your stuff. However, once backed up, you can free your phone’s gallery to make room for new pictures without worrying. These photos can be recovered and saved back to your device at any time. You can even view them on your computer by opening google photos through the browser by using the same google account.