Delete Auto Backup photos manually
Le photo of the Auto Backup folder, present in the Gallery of your phone, can be deleted very easily by following a very short procedure. Unlike the other images saved in the Gallery, the photos in the Auto Backup folder are not physically stored within the folder itself: they reside on Google's servers, and in fact they are the same ones you find in the Google Photos application.
Therefore, if you want to delete the photos contained in the Auto Backup folder from the Gallery of your device, you must use the Google Photos app. If this is not yet present on your device, open the Play Store (the colored ▶ ︎ symbol that you find on the home screen) and look for it within the latter. Then locate its icon (the colored pinwheel) among the search reonts, select it and proceed with its installation by pressing the button Install / Accetto.
At this point, start Google Photos, tap onimage you want to delete, then presses ontrash can icon below and the photo will be moved to the Google trash: this is the only procedure to follow if you intend to delete a photo from Google Photos e, at the same time, make it impossible to open it in the Auto Backup folder of the Gallery.
If, on the other he, you tap onthree dots icon positioned at the top right and then press on the item Delete from device present in the menu that opens, you simply delete the image from the phone's internal memory and not from the Google account. As a reont, you won't even delete it from the Gallery's Auto Backup folder.
Is everything clear so far? Great. Now open the the Gallery and select the folder Auto Backup- The photo you just deleted from the Google Photos app will appear with a black background. If you attempt to open it, you will see the following warning: Unable to upload photo. How do you say? Do you want to permanently delete the new black background image as well? You can do this by clearing the Gallery data and clearing the native application cache.
To do this, go to the menu Settings (the gear icon located on the home screen or in the screen with the list of all the apps installed on the device) and tap on the option Other, then presses on the voice Space used. In the new screen that opens, tap on the item Applications and swipe from top to bottom until you find the the Gallery. Finally select the the Gallery e presses the button Clear data and Clear cache.
When you're done, open the the Gallery of your phone and tap on the folder Auto Backup. Inside the folder, scrolling through the images, you should notice the disappearance of the photo you previously deleted in the Google Photos app.
If you wish, you can submit all the photos in the Auto Backup folder of the Gallery to the same procedure, thus significantly reducing the number of photos in it.
To have the completely empty Auto Backup folder, even your Google Photos must not contain photos. In fact, if you want to delete all the photos in the Android Auto Backup folder, you must remove all the images synchronized with Google Photos. Is this really what you want? Okay, then do the following.
First, open the application Google Photos from your smartphone, tap the button with i three dots placed at the top, press on the item Select present in the menu that opens, put the check mark next to the name of each save e, after selecting all the photos, tap on thetrash can icon.
In case of second thoughts, you will have 60 days of time to recover photos from the Google trash. At the end of the 60 days, the images will also be automatically removed from the recycle bin (therefore from the Google servers) and therefore will become irrecoverable. If you want to restore some photos that you moved to the trash, tap on the icon menu Google Photos (the hamburger icon) and presses on the item Trash can present in the menu that appears on the side.
So tap on the item Restore at the top right, select the photos you want to restore by putting the checkmark on each of it and press on the item Restore to complete the operation. To learn more, you can read my guide on how Google Photos works.
Delete Auto Backup photos from Picasa Web album
The logo present in the photos of the Auto Backup folder belongs to the software Picasa, which Google had relied on in the past to synchronize images on both phones and PCs (as long as the user used a Google account on their smartphone).
The photos contained in the device and used through Google's online services (for example, Blogger) were accessible, and still are, from a computer by connecting to the site Picasa Web Album. If, therefore, you want to delete the photos from the Auto Backup folder via the Picasa Web Album, you can connect to the official page of the program, click on one of the subfolders present, finally pressing onthree dots icon located at the top right and clicking on the item Manage in Google Photos in the menu displayed on the screen. You will be redirected to the Google Photos page for Picasa albums: click the i button again three dots, open a photo, press the button with i three dots e select the item Move to the trash give the menu check if you press.
If you intend to delete the entire album, return to the previous Google Photos screen by clicking on the button ← at the top left, click on the icon now three dots at the top right and presses on the voice Delete album present in the drop-down menu that opens. To check if the photo has also been removed from the Picasa Web Albums Auto Backup folder, go back to the previous Picasa Web Album window that you kept open: you will notice that the deleted photo from Google Photos is no longer even in the Picasa folder.
Disable Google Account Sync
When you delete the photos in the Auto Backup folder, you are only fixing the problem temporarily. In fact, if the synchronization of your Google account remains active, every new photo you take will be kept in the Auto Backup folder. So, you will return to the starting point: hundreds of photos to be deleted and the permanent presence of the Auto Backup folder within the Gallery.
If your wish is not to see the Auto Backup folder anymore, you must deactivate the synchronization of your Google account on the phone. How do you say? Don't know how to do it? I assure you that it is a very simple operation, achievable in a few taps. Open the Settings from the application screen of your smartphone, tap on the section Account, then presses on the voice Google e, in the screen that opens, uncheck the item Synchronize Web Albums: This way, any photos you take from here on out will not be synced to the dated Picasa Web Album.
To make sure new photos aren't uploaded to the Auto Backup folder, turn off syncing in Google Photos as well. Then open the Google Photos, press the pulsating menu located at the top left, select the item Settings from the menu that opens e, on the screen displayed, tap on the option Backup and synchronization. Then remove the check mark from the item Backup and synchronization And that's it.
If you have performed all the steps correctly, the new photos you take with your smartphone will be kept in the Gallery, while the Auto Backup folder will remain empty.
