Bunch of pictures appearing in my Google drive that's not in my Gallery on my Galaxy S9?

[Frida Chen]

Up until this week, whenever I took pictures with my phone (S9) they appeared in my gallery and that's that.  Suddenly, a huge chunk of photos are now only appearing in google drive; I do not see them in Gallery.  I want them OFF of Google Photos and back in Gallery and only in Gallery.  Someone told me that, backup must be on in google photos.  I don't know how that suddenly happened but I have now turned it off.  However, when I download a photo from Google photos, it goes to an Album named Restored.  And if I try to then delete the photo from Google photos, it also deletes it from Gallery on my phone.

Please HELP!  I need my photos on my phone and deleted from Gallery.  It is crucial at this point since Google storage is full and I do not want them there.

[realaud]

Google sync is on by default from the time you first get your phone. You must physically turn it off if you don't want your photos backed up to it. When Google backup is used, your photos reside on your phone as well as in Google photos. Deleting photos from your phone through gallery or file manager will not delete them from Google (that's the purpose of backup). However, deleting the photos from Google will delete them from your phone as well, so if you've been deleting them from Google photos, that's why they are no longer in your gallery-they no longer reside on your phone. If you want your photos out of Google, first copy/download them to a computer or flash drive. Also copy any on your phone in the designated storage location. Once you have them secured, delete them from Google photos. Once you have cleared Google photos, you can then copy them from the external drive back into the DCIM folder through the file manager.

[Frida Chen]

Thanks so much for your response and care in editing it.  I was off grid a few day but have now had the chance to review this. I remain with 3 questions (sorry, I am quite non-tech):

1.  What I don't understand is that in he past it worked exactly as you say:  my photos would be on my camera and actually i do not think they were being backed up to google photos.  However, just recently, without any voluntary intervention on my part (I am guessing that I probably must have requested backup without realizing it at some point), they are being backed up but even worse they were deleted from my phone, i.e., when I look in gallery they do not show up; they only show up on google photos.

2. I believe I have stopped the backup (see attached photo) however I just took this photo and it is still appearing in google photos.  What more do I have to do to get this to stop?  I disabled backup in google photos app; do I have to do something else as well?  (I have a samsung galaxy 9) 

3.  Since I am out of storage on google drive and I do not want to purchase more, I know that regardless of anything else, I have to download all the photos to my computer and just delete them all from google photos/drive.  There are several of them that I do still want to be able to access on my phone and am not sure how I am supposed to copy them back to the DCIM folder (?) through file manager.

I truly appreciate your help!

[realaud]

1. When you take photos with the camera, the files are stored on your phone's storage drive. Google sync is on by default unless/until you turn it off. If your Google storage is full, you can manage the storage by deleting or downloading photos you no longer want to keep. You have to do this from the website, not the app. Then you can download it in a .zip file that can be unzipped and stored elsewhere. If you free up space on Google Drive, you will still be able to sync. It is important to note that the contents of Google storage includes your backup photos, contacts, and any contents in Google Drive. The storage allocation is the combined contents, so if you have documents you no longer need in Google Drive, you should eliminate them too.

2. I don't know how or why your photos were deleted from your phone, unless you or somone who had access to your account tired to free up space by deleting photos from the backup. When you delete photos from the Google backup, if they are still stored on your phone at the time, Google will delete the photos from the phone. If the photos were moved from the phone prior to deleting the backup, then only the backup copy in Google is deleted. If you delete photos directly from the Gallery, they remain in Google backup until you delete them, but they are gone from your phone. Which is why I said, any photos remaining on your phone should be moved to an external drive or computer to safeguard them while you clean up Google backup.
I looks like, from your screenshot, that you have successfully turned off Google backup, so your photos will not be automatically backed up in the future. If you took a screenshot, you might have to turn off sync of that folder, as well, as they are stored wherever you designated them to be stored. If you left it at the default, it would be the DCIM folder/screenshots.

3. In order to move files from your phone to a different location for backup or safekeeping, you would open the phone's file manager and navigate to the DCIM folder. If you have designated albums, they will be folders in the DCIM folder. You can move the whole folder by selecting it and choosing "move" and then selecting the location to move to. After you move aything that's left on your phone to an alternate location, you can then download the photos from Google to the alternate location and delete everything from Google with no harm to your photos, as they will be safely protected elsewhere. After you Clean up Google, you can then reconnect your external drive and open the phone's file manager and reverse the process of copying the folders/photos from your external source to your DCIM folder. Then, your photos will reside on your phone, and the only backup you will have is what's on your external drive, so if something happens to your photos again, you will not be able to recover them.

it should go without saying that once you download your photos in .zip format, you will have to unzip them in order to copy them back to your phone. In any case, your phone's storage, like Google, is also finite, so if you take a lot of photos and don't regularly move them someplace else, you will have no space on your phone for more photos or apps. If you are an Amazon Prime member, Amazon has unlimited photo storage for Prime members.

Since you turned Google sync off, any photos you take going forward will remain on your phone, but not sync.

Honestly, though, I don't know why you just don't keep sync off and view your "missing" photos from the Google Photos app - it seems a lot easier.