INFO - My conclusions about Google Photos

After the last discussion in “How-tos” with the topic “Google Drive used for Google Maps !?” and seeing that other people have similar problems, below is a summary of the discussions that may be helpful:

  • Google Photos saves photos in Google Drive (those 15 GB free space)
  • by default Google Maps saves the photos in Google Photos and consumes from the same 15 GB of saving space made available to the contributors for free.
  • if you enable the “high quality” option in Google Photos you can recover your personal space consumed by Google Maps
  • if you delete photos from Google Photos and if they come from Google Maps then they will also be deleted from Google Maps

All above assumptions were tested on my contributor account.

From my point of view, the question that remains open is how do you differentiate between the photos you want to post on Google Maps and the personal photos that are not public if they are all in Google Photos?!?!

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Hi @FlorinelV

The best way to see if your photo is public, private, or with limited access, is to check your stored photos here: https://get.google.com/albumarchive/

All your photos should be there. Opening a single folder, you can see if it is flagged as Public, Private or Limited (e.g. shared by link, or to a specific person).

Be careful with the public photos: if you made them private, the photos will not be longer visible on Google Maps

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Hello @ErmesT ,

Thanks for the prompt response and help.

I think I need to read more about Google concept regarding photos … (if I will have patience)

The link you gave me https://get.google.com/albumarchive/ takes me to a page that I see for the first time … and is different from what I see in Google Photos (https: // photos.google.com /), different even from albums in Google Photos.

These normal photos and the operation with them have become in this case a very complicated “concept” when in fact they are just files.

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I know not too many people use that link @FlorinelV

And I agree they are just files, coming in this case from different kind of contributions, or simply storage.

What makes every file unique is the attribute, especially related to the privacy setting, and this is the only place where you can find ALL the photos stored in Google, uploaded by you.

What is for me interesting is that this way to see your photos belongs to Picasa: https://support.google.com/picasa/answer/7008270?visit_id=637109779348066543-121621405&p=aarc&rd=1

I would love too to have a more efficient way to find more about my photos (where I used) and to filter the results, but at least this is a place where you can (carefully) manage them

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Hi @FlorinelV thank you for taking time to test this. What I would like to confirm with you from your findings is that, once you switch to high quality, what happen to your photos if you delete them from Google photos after they are in high quality, do they still get deleted or what?

Thank you @ErmesT for sharing the archive link, I never used it before, I can see that it shows all photos which are public and private. Cheers!

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Hello @Raphael-Mahumane

Good question!

I tested the deletion of some photos from Google Photos after the “high quality” option was activated.
Unfortunately, in this situation, once deleted photos from Google Photos, they also disappear from Google Maps.

PS: recover photos from “Google Photos trash” will restore the contribution points and the photos in Google Maps

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Hi @FlorinelV I suggest that you seperate your contribution from personal photos, only upload personal photos to Google photos, and all your Google Maps contribution straight to Google Maps, delete them on your device once you are done uploading, only when you dont need them anymore, this will help you and eliminate all the other issues.

I am sure Google drive and Google photos will keep improving for the better, so you better stay on the safe lane, If you want to keep all your photos, just get a subscription for Google One drive. Cheers!

Hi @Raphael-Mahumane

Based on what I have learned in the last days I have a solution to this problem, I will not save any personal photos in Google Photos.

I think that you missed the essential of this discussion,
Google Maps saves contributor’s photos in Google Photos which from my point of view is very strange.

The Google team has configured the applications mentioned in this discussion based on the false premise that all users will put all their photos in Google Photos, some of which may be public and because of this false premise they decided to share the same storage space for Google Maps, Google Photos and Google Drive (at least).

Hi @FlorinelV we can not tell you what to do, we only give advice based on the knowledge we have. Thank you and enjoy your day.

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