how to free up space in google photos without deleting from phone

How to delete photos only from google photos but not on phone gallery?

reddit.com › r › googlephotos › comments › 169qxgr › how_to_delete_photos_only_from_google_photos_but

I found a solution, on your phone you can see the original and backup photo, on the web Google photos you can only see the backed up photo, so just go on the Google photos web browser delete it from there and it will delete the backup but not the one from the phone, just make sure before you delete a photo that's backed up just make sure it stored on your phone, to check just scroll up on a photo and if you see a download button it's on the cloud but not on your phone so download it first then delete on web browser Answer from A_Duck_That_Fell on reddit.com

Google Support

support.google.com › photos › thread › 280730 › how-do-i-delete-photos-from-google-photos-but-not-from-my-device

How do I delete photos from Google Photos but not from my device? - Google Photos Community

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Google Support

support.google.com › photos › thread › 133940607 › how-do-i-delete-all-my-google-photos-to-free-up-my-space-without-deleting-adding-photos-from-phone

How do I delete all my google photos to free up my space without deleting/adding photos from phone? - Google Photos Community

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Google Support

support.google.com › photos › answer › 6128843

Free up space on your device - Android - Google Photos Help

Important: This feature deletes photos from your device. On your Android phone or tablet, open the Google Photos app . Sign in to your Google Account. Tap your account profile photo or initial Free up space on this device.

reddit.com › r/googlephotos › how to delete photos only from google photos but not on phone gallery?

r/googlephotos on Reddit: How to delete photos only from google photos but not on phone gallery?

September 4, 2023 -

I've tried looking it up but to be honest I'm even more confused now. I downloaded google photos onto my android phone so that I could share photos with a friend, but it automatically backed up all of my photos. I've turned off backup, but of course the photos that have already been backed up are still backed up. It has taken up so much storage that gmail is warning me I won't be able to send and receive emails soon. I tried deleting a photo on google photos to check, but it also deleted it on my phone's gallery. So does anyone know how to remove photos from backup without deleting them?

Top answer

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Alright for anyone reading, here's the solution I figured out by myself: Step 1 - Download the Google GALLERY app and give it all the necessary permissions and ensure it is able to access all the photos on your device. Step 2 - Go to Google PHOTOS and delete all the backed up photos that you don't want taking up storage in your Google storage. This will move them to the bin, you will still be able to see all the pictures in the bin on Google photos. Step 3 - Go to Google GALLERY and go to the BIN there and recover all the photos that you just now deleted using Google PHOTOS. What happens here is that Google gallery recovers all images and puts them back into your local storage however, as far as Google PHOTOS is concerned those images are deleted and are no longer backed up either. Congratulations, you've successfully deleted the images from Google photos but kept them in your local storage. Thanks for reading.

MultCloud

multcloud.com › multcloud tutorials › how to free up space on google photos | full guide

How to Free Up Space on Google Photos | Full Guide

August 7, 2025 - 1. Please open the Google Photos app, and log in to your account. 2. Tap the avatar image on the top right, and choose Free up space from the pop-up window. 3. Click the Free up **GB button to delete all local backup copies from your device.

Google

guidebooks.google.com › storage › manage-storage-with-google-photos › free-up-storage-space-with-google-photos

Free up space in Photos Storage Manager - Guidebooks

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Rowan Sims

rowansims.com › home › how to free up space on your phone without deleting photos

How To Free Up Space On Your Phone Without Deleting Photos

July 25, 2020 - If not, it’s super simple and free to sign up. 3. Click “Device Folders” to select which folders you want to back up. 4. Once all your media is backed up, click “Free Up Space”.

reddit.com › r/googlephotos › how do i properly get more storage without deleting important photos?

r/googlephotos on Reddit: How do I properly get more storage without deleting important photos?

March 3, 2024 - If you want to remove them from the device, go to Google Photos, click your profile picture in top right, look in the middle of the menu and you’ll see a button for deleting X number of files. Click this. It will only delete photos that are already backed up in the cloud. ... Deleting apps... You have only 64gb that's not much...most of ur storage is being used by apps... So delete them ... Or buy a new phone with more memory...

9to5Google

9to5google.com › home › google photos: how to free up space and delete safely backed-up photos

How to free up space in Google Photos

March 29, 2023 - A photo stored on the device simply takes up space, though one could argue that locally stored photos are better quality. Fortunately, Google lets you back up images in original quality, though that is going to impact your cloud storage. Backed-up photos take very little time to pull up and view, though you’ll need at least some internet connection to do so.

Find elsewhere

Google Bing Mojeek

reddit.com › r/googlephotos › how to “clear up space” from google photos app on iphone , without deleting anything from iphone photos gallery / icloud

r/googlephotos on Reddit: How to “clear up space” from Google Photos app on iPhone , without deleting anything from iPhone Photos Gallery / iCloud

January 4, 2023 -

Hi all - New to Apple stuff, never had this issue on my Android. Please explain everything to me like I’m an 8 yr old lol and lemme know if there’s a better place to post. also lmk if I should change the flair? Thanks so much I n advance!

Ok so I desperately need to clear up space from both my Google account and my iPhone…

I have the Google Photos app and the normal iPhone Photos gallery. So removing duplicates of everything will help clear space. (Yes, I realize I could just delete Google Photos app but I like it and use it for sharing files for work.)

When I select the option to ** to clear up space,** by deleting/removing the Google Photos on my IPhone, it says that I can “still view them any time in google photos.” (Am assuming this means google photos online?) Sounds good to me…

But, when I click Free Up Space, this notification pops up: Allow "Google Photos" to Delete 5,105 items?” ”Delete 124 photos from 19 bursts, and 4,981 other items? These items will be deleted from iCloud Photos on all your devices.” With the option to Allow or Delete (See pic)

What does this mean, exactly? And what should I do? (Tips on settings to change?)

PS To be clear: I dont want anything permanently deleted from my cloud and I’d like to keep all my photos on my phone in my IPhone Photos gallery. I just want to remove the duplicate copies from my Google Photos app and still be able to view them online.

Top answer

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Your words are confusing. First, the free up space function in gp... it's sole purpose is to delete stuff on your device that has been backed up to the gp cloud. (It does not delete stuff in the cloud). And I'm not an ios user but I think when you do that it not only deletes from your device but also from icloud (since that's your device's storage location). Second, you are using the word duplicates. GP does not store duplicate photos. Perhaps, you mean the same photo between icloud and GP? If your intent is to delete from the gp cloud only, you need to do that from a web browser at photos.google.com and then don't allow that delete to sync to your device. On android it asks but not sure on ios (may have to turn sync off).

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Did u solve this? How?

CBackup

cbackup.com › cbackup tutorials › how to stop free up space in google photos? [4 ways included]

How to Stop Free up Space in Google Photos? [4 Ways Included]

June 10, 2025 - Step 3. Find Google Photos, tap Force Stop, and click OK in the pop-up window to confirm. The operation of Google Photos depends on the network. Another way to stop Google Photos from freeing up space is to disconnect the network.

Android Authority

androidauthority.com › home › mobile › this is how i keep my google photos storage low to avoid paying for google one

This is how I keep my Google Photos storage low to avoid paying for Google One

February 12, 2025 - When I find a stack of similar photos, I tap the Trash button on the one I want to delete and then choose Current photo only. Once more, this is a lengthy process, but if you go at it bit by bit, you can clean up your library from a lot of extraneous photos, save space, and make sure your library only has the photos you really want to keep.

Google Support

support.google.com › photos › answer › 9284827

Manage your storage - Android - Google Photos Help

You can also free up space on your device. On your Android device, open the Google Photos app . Sign in to your Google Account. At the top, tap your Profile picture or Initial. Tap Photos settings Backup Manage storage. Under the summary of your storage use, you can find a list of recommended file categories to clean up, such as large photos and videos. Tap Select. Select the items you want to delete.

MobileTrans

mobiletrans.wondershare.com › android-tips › free-up-space-in-google-photos.html

Easy Guide: How to Free Up Space in Google Photos

October 27, 2025 - Google Photos operates independently of your device's gallery. It only removes the cloud copy. If you want to clear space on your phone, use features like Free Up Space or manually delete from your device gallery.

MakeUseOf

makeuseof.com › home › android › 7 ways to free up storage space on google photos

7 Ways to Free Up Storage Space on Google Photos

November 19, 2023 - Meanwhile, the trash itself is capable of holding up to 1.5GB of deleted media. If you want to immediately free up space in Google Photos, empty the trash to reclaim a decent amount of space.

reddit.com › r/googlephotos › how can i free up space on google photos?

r/googlephotos on Reddit: How can I free up space on Google photos?

March 12, 2023 -

Hi everyone. Like a fool, I had been recording videos in 4k for almost a year, and it's completed filled up my Google photos storage (I pay for 200gb).

What should I do?

I downloaded/exported every photo and video from that period, so maybe I could just delete all of them from my Google photos to free up space.

Ideally though I'd like to keep them backed up in Google photos, is there any way to compress them within Google photos whilst keeping the original resolution on my phone?

Or do you have any other ideas? Thanks!