Google photos backing up IOS photos makes duplicates

Tech Talk Photography
1

Is it me or does Google make multiple backups of the same photo from iOS? I am thinking it happens because the duplicate is the edited version on the original photo? Any way to stop this?

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2

Just to say I am experiencing this too. :-1: Oddly it didn’t used to happen, but does now for some reason. Hopefully a Googler will be able to give more of an insight.

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3

I let Google Photos upload my photos and it went and deleted them from both my phone and iCloud. :face_with_symbols_over_mouth: I was REALLY mad (because there were lots of photos of my infant son in there). Fortunately, I learned that iCloud holds onto photos for 30 days and was able to recover them all.

Never using Google Photos again after that.

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4

how is that possible? did you click “clear up space”?

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5

I have no idea…but nothing I did clearly indicated that it would delete photos from both my phone and iCloud.

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I feel with all google iOS apps I’m always one click away from deleting all iCloud linked data (contacts, calendar, photos).

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I don’t use Google Photos so I may be talking out my butt, but I recall it has an option built in to delete them after upload to free up space. I think you can turn that off. But no doubt, Apple sees them deleted, and doesn’t differentiate who deleted them or why, and just syncs the delete to iCloud.

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Mine used to do this as well however if I recall one of the updates supposedly fixed this issue. Mine no longer updates duplicates.

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Wow, Apple let’s an app delete your data from both the phone and iCloud. I get that Google should be more careful, but still, letting an app have that much power to impact your backup, that’s crazy. Backup should be backup, not a live sync. Hmmm.

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So, is there a way to delete all Google Photos stored in the cloud and then have it re-backup my iCloud photos?

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This worked for me:

iOS Google Photos app: Turn off backup/sync then delete the App.
Google photos on the web; Delete all photos.
Reinstall iOS google photos app and turn on backup/sync.

Goes without saying but I would recommend backing your iCloud photos before fiddling with anything. Good luck!

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Seem to recall it being said sometime that using Apple iCloud Photos is not a backup solution. Even Apple recommends you backup your Photos library if using iCloud.