Disappointed & Disgusted
I am writing this review in the hope the others will follow suit and stand up for consumers rights, as they don’t seem to pay attention to the feedback of their customers, the ones who actually pay for the privilege.
I first used google photos years ago and was relatively satisfied with the app. Unfortunately it is just useless now. I have thousands upon thousands of photos saved and pay for a service where I can’t find a single image in search because they took away this basic function for whatever profit gaining reason they deemed reasonable. What is the point if you can’t search and find your saved images?
Also seriously, it’s 2024 and Google hasn’t figured out away for Apple users to transfer their saved photo albums directly to albums in Google photos, and you have to manually save all your photos into albums again? Such simple adjustments that would actually make the app consumer friendly and worth paying for. I would suggest finding an alternative to entrust your precious memories with, rather than pay for a service run by a company whom has such little regard for their customers and their photos.
I first used google photos years ago and was relatively satisfied with the app. Unfortunately it is just useless now. I have thousands upon thousands of photos saved and pay for a service where I can’t find a single image in search because they took away this basic function for whatever profit gaining reason they deemed reasonable. What is the point if you can’t search and find your saved images?
Also seriously, it’s 2024 and Google hasn’t figured out away for Apple users to transfer their saved photo albums directly to albums in Google photos, and you have to manually save all your photos into albums again? Such simple adjustments that would actually make the app consumer friendly and worth paying for. I would suggest finding an alternative to entrust your precious memories with, rather than pay for a service run by a company whom has such little regard for their customers and their photos.
Show less
Album Disappointment
I spent a long, looong time organising my Albums into Alphabetical order so that I could find them quickly. Showed this feature off to others and that got them starting with Google Photos. Recently wanted to find to put some photos into an Album beginning with A … and couldn’t find it! Realised I haven’t got them in Alphabetical order any more either. What has happened???? Am I going to have to change to a different App after all these years?
Show less
Response from developer
Hi there. We value your feedback. Feel free to share feedback with us here: https://goo.gle/3gaHLEz.
Google photos
I appreciate if someone from your admin would text me , as I’m getting upset for your app deleted the photos on your apps as well on my iPhone album that is: when I deleted from my albums photos. Both ended deleted. I downloaded your app and paying $3.00 a month is hoping I can have more space on the iPhone album and permanently store in google apps but either side of the apps/album delete , if I delete one area, hell both is deleted, so tell me why do I need google photos when I cannot save space from iPhone photos album and your apps, I was told your apps was helping to save space on my phone. Please tell me what to do that google photos will not delete from it place when I deleted from iPhone album please. Honestly paying somethings (even small charge) but no use to have WHAT FOR? Can u also tells me where is your setting icon? Sad I lost confidence and no one care to reply, I am a customer, right?
Show less
Response from developer
We're sorry to hear you had this issue, Laurita. If you delete photos and videos from the Google Photos app, the same items will be deleted from your device. Learn how to remove items that are backed up to Google Photos but not from your device: https://goo.gle/41bJvoF.
Syncs with iCloud to aggressively as well as Gmail storage. Needs more options in app.
The google photos app seems ok until you realize it is synced to your gmail storage, it also syncs to your iCloud storage and phone so when you want to delete photos just from google photo to allow storage for regular emails this becomes a problem fast. The google photo app NEEDS selective deleting icons during manage storage so you can deselect/select iCloud storage, phone device, and google photo storage independently. It grabbed everything and I had to do several things to keep my photos safe and put back in iCloud just to free up storage on google photo so I could receive emails. I have 2TB ICloud and wanted to use google photos to see any benefits but never got to that point because it forced me to buy or manage storage immediately and was synced to my iCloud storage. If you already have storage don’t even bother checking the app out as it becomes a major headache syncing to iCloud and phone, hopefully they will add deleting selective icons so you can use and try separately from your iCloud storage if you choose. They also need to reserve an optional GB for emails and allow you time to delete and navigate the app without risking important emails returning to sender etc. This is a big negative for people when you force them to buy storage not really needed just to continue to receive emails since all google accounts are synced to the free 15GB.
Show less
iPhone IOS and Google Photos
Yes, it seems that Apple has removed or changed the integration between iOS and Google Photos regarding automatic removal of deleted items from your iPhone's Photos app. In the past, Google Photos had a feature where it could recognize when items were deleted from the iPhone’s Photos app and sync the deletion to Google Photos, but it looks like this functionality is no longer available or works differently.
Apple’s more closed ecosystem means that third-party apps like Google Photos have limited access to modify or sync certain actions, like automatically deleting items from Google Photos based on actions in the native Photos app. Now, you will have to manage deletions separately between the Photos app and Google Photos.
There may still be updates from Google Photos that could restore or improve this functionality, but for now, the best workaround is manually managing your deletions in both apps. Unfortunately, Apple has tightened these types of integrations to protect data and ensure that third-party apps don’t unintentionally remove files without user permission.
Apple’s more closed ecosystem means that third-party apps like Google Photos have limited access to modify or sync certain actions, like automatically deleting items from Google Photos based on actions in the native Photos app. Now, you will have to manage deletions separately between the Photos app and Google Photos.
There may still be updates from Google Photos that could restore or improve this functionality, but for now, the best workaround is manually managing your deletions in both apps. Unfortunately, Apple has tightened these types of integrations to protect data and ensure that third-party apps don’t unintentionally remove files without user permission.
Show less
Not a good experience
My mother inadvertently set up photo backups when installing this app - and now google drive is complaining it’s out of space, asking her for money and saying her email has been disabled. When she attempts to free up space, photos are deleted from her other Apple devices. Why anyone would want deletions on a google service to sync to their Apple device by default is beyond me - and I’ve wasted hours trying to resolve this for her. The fact that this may be user error is not the point - a big corporate like google with all of your resources doing this to a 70 year old retiree leaves a very bad taste.
Show less
Unable to opt out automatically saving on this app
I've been using this app for a while now, and while there are many features I appreciate, I've encountered a significant inconvenience that affects my overall experience: the automatic saving of photos. This feature, without an apparent option to disable it, has led to my device's storage quickly filling up. As a result, I found myself compelled to purchase additional storage space, which was both unexpected and unwelcome.
The lack of control over this aspect is quite frustrating. It's crucial for apps, especially ones dealing with content creation or management, to offer users the flexibility to customize settings to their preferences and needs. The ability to enable or disable automatic photo saving is a basic functionality I expected to find, and its absence is a notable drawback.
I hope the development team can address this issue in future updates. Providing users with more autonomy over their settings, particularly concerning storage and data management, would significantly enhance the user experience. Until such improvements are made, my satisfaction with the app remains tempered by this oversight.
The lack of control over this aspect is quite frustrating. It's crucial for apps, especially ones dealing with content creation or management, to offer users the flexibility to customize settings to their preferences and needs. The ability to enable or disable automatic photo saving is a basic functionality I expected to find, and its absence is a notable drawback.
I hope the development team can address this issue in future updates. Providing users with more autonomy over their settings, particularly concerning storage and data management, would significantly enhance the user experience. Until such improvements are made, my satisfaction with the app remains tempered by this oversight.
Show less
Not Perfect But Pretty Stellar
Update: 6 April 2024. This app is easy to use and still beats Apple photo app as to search term intelligence and retrieval. And it’s editing abilities are impressive as well. However Google coulda/shoulda included a photo duplicate search, select and delete function because it still seems that somehow some of my photos get duplicated! Google has the best mathematicians, ai experts/analysts and programmers in the world. Every computer or smartphone user and device depends one way or another on Google services. Given all Google’s talent and Google’s vast user base, Google should/coulda fitted Google Photo with an outstanding Photo Duplicate Deletion by now! A photo duplicate search/select and delete feature could make Google Photos the ultimate photo storage and managing app with this one addition Google Photo Duplicate Deleter should include these features: 1) Intelligence to detect 4 classes of duplicates: exact dupes, nearly exact dupes, similar dupes and No Duplicates Exist photo. 2) Allow users to review and select photos within these groups pic by pic. 3) Allow users to delete either one photo dupe at a time or by “all pics selected.” 4) Create 2 kinds of delete destinations: a) TRASH and a b) HOLD 20 DAYS Before Deletion file. So yes Google Photos is very smart and very much appreciated but it isn’t yet perfect!
Show less
Limitations vs good features
Love being able to store & back up but unless I am missing tricks moving photos to albums is laborious. Also no ability to detect & remove duplicates is really annoying. Albums also allow the same photo to be added multiple times. I can’t see how to put an album in date of photo order no matter when added to an album. Now and again I get alerts to rotate pics but only some. Then I find more when browsing. The face ID is pretty good but has some limitations. I do the suggested look backs, collages and enhanced photo suggestions. Need more utilities to be really good
Show less
Good to store photos.
To be honest, I don’t think many people don’t have this app nowadays, I’m pretty sure it’s the most used app to store photos. It does it’s job brilliantly and I don’t think I’ve met someone that doesn’t store there photos on it, there is other apps to store photos but this is by far the best, you can also make cute movies, collages and albums, and it’s always exciting to see the do you remember this? Memories that pop up each morning. It also dates pictures and you can easily find different photos from each year. It is also connected to many of the apps we use daily such as WhatsApp ect. I would definitely recommend getting this app if you don’t already have it as it is very useful, there isn’t many flaws at all and I can’t name any right now. I highly recommend to get this app, but I’d be surprised if you don’t have it on your phone. I’ve also used this on iPad/ tablet and it’s just as good and useful, you can still do all the same things and it’s very handy to catch beautiful moments and memories.
Show less
