These two cloud services are safe places for storing all the images in your gallery. However, things could take an erroneous turn if you accidentally go for the wrong option. If that happens, let’s see how to recover permanently deleted photos from Google Drive and Google Photos.
Although, even if you happen to delete a photo album or two by mistake, you can always recover it from the “Trash” folder found within these two apps.
With that being said, the real question here is: “Can I recover permanently deleted photos from Google Photos (or Google Drive, for that matter)?”
If you’ve also wondered the same, then you have clicked on the right article, as today we’re going to be discussing how to recover permanently deleted photos from Google Drive and Google Photos – if it is even possible at all.
Table of Contents
- How to recover permanently deleted photos from Google Drive and Google Photos
- Emptying Google Photos
- How do I delete photos from my phone but not Google Photos?
- Wrap Up
How to recover permanently deleted photos from Google Drive and Google Photos
Accidentally deleting your photos is one thing, but permanently deleting them can get you into a world of trouble. Although there is no way of getting your data back right from the Google Drive or Google Photos application, Google Drive specialists can really be of help.
If you have a GSuite account, then all your permanently deleted photos, videos, and other files can be recovered from your work or school administrator account within a time period of 25 days. However, once that period has passed, chances are that your data has been completely lost and unrecoverable.
As for regular Google Drive and Google Photos users, they are even less likely to get their permanently deleted data back, as the servers don’t hold that data for long.
Also, there’s another condition for users making the recovery request: they have to be the owners of the files or folders. In case you do own your photos and you have only permanently deleted them very recently (we’re talking, not more than 24 hours), you can try your luck and contact a Google Drive Specialist here.
Emptying Google Photos
There can also be instances where you’ve accidentally been backing up all your photos on your Google Photos account. In case you don’t really need a backup, it’s a good idea to empty your Google Photos account.
However, if thousands of images have accumulated there over the years, it can cost you hours to delete your photos one by one, which might lead you to wonder for an easier way. If that’s the case, you’re in luck as we’ll tell you how to delete all photos from Google Photos.
Albeit the fact that Google has not given a feature for deleting all your photos at once, there are still plenty of workarounds that you can find on the Internet. With that being said, we’re going to tell you about the one which has worked best for us:
- To start, you have to open your Google Photos account on your computer;
- Then, you need to select the first picture by clicking the check-mark on its top-left side;
- Afterward, scroll down as much as you can until you reach the last photo on your account;
- Now, select that photo while holding “Shift” on your keyboard and click the “Trash” icon you’ll find on the top-right side of the page.
With this, all your photos and videos should be moved to the Trash folder, where you can opt for “Empty Trash” to permanently delete all your files.
How do I delete photos from my phone but not Google Photos?
Can you delete photos from the camera roll but keep them in an album? That is another very frequently asked question.
Well, the answer is simple: You definitely can. There’s a special feature known as “Free up space” that you can find in the menu of your Google Photos app.
What this feature does is basically delete all the photos and videos from your device that have already been backed up on your Google Photos account.
However, this is only a viable option if you’re planning on deleting every single backed-up image on your phone.
On the other hand, if you only want to delete a handful of images, you’ll have to take another route.
- First of all, you should select all the images you want to delete;
- Afterward, you need to open the menu by pressing the 3-dots button located at the top-right side;
- In the menu, look for the option “Delete Device Copy” and press it.
Once you’re done with that, the selected images should be removed from your local storage, but still, be available on your Google Photos account.
Wrap Up
Apart from just backing up your photos, videos and other files, Google Drive and Google Photos offer many other features to facilitate the users in case anything goes wrong.
Accordingly, even if you’ve permanently deleted your files, there’s still a chance that you can get them back by following the aforementioned procedure.
Not only that, but Google Photos also allows you to delete all your account photos at once and also gives you the chance to only delete photos from your local storage and not from your account.
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