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Original topic:

OneDrive and Samsung Gallery sync creates duplicates in OneDrive

(Topic created: 05-25-2023 03:49 PM)
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MiniatureHorse25
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Hello! So I am currently facing an issue which is quite irritating. I am trying to sync my photos from my Samsung Gallery to my OneDrive. If I do this directly via the Samsung Gallery app, the sync starts and it goes as expected.

However, in my OneDrive account, 2 separate folders have been created after the sync was initiated, both of them in the Pictures folder.

One of the folders is called "Cameral roll" and the other is called "Samsung Gallery"

The photos I take with my phone are now saved in 2 places and they are therefore being duplicated. They are being saved in the "Camera roll" folder and in the "Samsung Gallery/DCIM/Camera" folder path.

This is obviously not what I want. I want just the "Samsung Gallery/DCIM/Camera" folder path because the "Camera roll" folder does not act as a 2 way sync. Meaning that if I delete something from "Samsung Gallery/DCIM/Camera" folder path, the photos are also deleted on my phone, but if I delete something from "Camera roll", it's not being deleted from my phone or from "Samsung Gallery/DCIM/Camera" folder path.

I have checked everywhere I can and I found a similar thread which is now closed:

My phone is a Samsung Galaxy S10e and I have tried looking in all the settings (OneDrive and Samsung Gallery) and none of them can explain this crazy behavior.

An additional point is that I can't sync all of the albums that I have in my Samsung Gallery to my OneDrive. So I have for example Whatsapp Videos and Whatsapp photos folders in my Gallery. But in the settings, I can't select these 2 albums for the OneDrive sync.

Could you please provide me with some guidance here?

3 Replies
DanG92263
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Before Samsung discontinued their cloud service for photos your photo were saved in their cloud and, if you were backing up your photos also with OneDrive, they were saved in the Camera Roll file.

Since they have discontinued their cloud service for photos they are now saved in the Samsung Gallery file, and will continue to add new photos there.

Just drag and drop the Camera Roll photos in the Samsung Gallery folder and either Replace the duplicate photos or Skip the duplicate photos, then delete the Camera Roll folder.
Solution
DanG92263
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BE VERY CAREFUL WHEN DELETING FILES IN THE SAMSUNG GALLERY FOLDER ON YOUR PC/LAPTOP AS IT MAY REMOVE THE IMAGE FROM BOTH YOUR PC AND PHONE. You can recover it from the Recycle Bin (RB), but may be removed fron the RB after thirty days, then it is gone forever.

You can easily remove photos from your phone (to free up space), without worry.

Goto
Samsung Gallery app
Tap the hamburger icon (three horizontal lines) in the bottom right
Tap Settings
Tap Sync with OneDrive
Tap Free up phone space
MiniatureHorse25
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@DanG92263this is exactly what I was looking for! Thank you so much for your help 🙂

Let me tell everyone else exactly what I have done to get it working on my phone (Samsung Galaxy S10e) in case someone looks for this later.

The first thing was activating the sync via the Samsung Gallery app (logging in, connecting my Samsung account to Microsoft, etc.).

Then I selected my album to sync (the Camera album). That started appearing on my PC in the OneDrive pictures folder (in "Camera roll" and in "Samsung Gallery/DCIM"). As expected, Camera roll still kept getting photos but being out of sync, super annoying.


I then disconnected the sync from the Samsung Gallery app and emptied the "Camera roll" folder in the OneDrive Pictures folder on my computer. I also turned the option off for "Media storage" from the "Settings app>Accounts and backup>Manage accounts>OneDrive>Sync account>Media Storage = Off".

This has discontinued my sync with the "Camera roll" folder on my PC's OneDrive and has only left the "Samsung Gallery>DCIM" folder in my OneDrive and now only 1 folder is syncing (both ways!!)

It took me quite a bit to figure it out but it works!