Much-Needed Google Photos Feature Announced

 Google Photos finally gets a Much-Needed Feature 

If you struggle remember people, places or even the specific meal you ate on holiday, then fear not – Google Photos is getting two big upgrades that mean it will increasingly act like your AI-powered photographic memory. Google is finally starting to roll out a much-needed Google Photos feature that could prevent users from accidentally deleting large numbers of photos and videos. The first is a big update to the search function in Google Photos. Google says that you'll be able to search your photos in the iOS or Android app using more everyday language, rather than specific keywords.

First leaked in June, Google’s new “Undo Device Backup” feature will allow Google Photos users to delete their cloud backups without also deleting the same content from their devices. After nearly five months, Google has finally announced the feature via the official Google Photos Help forum. Currently, deleting a photo or video from Google Photos also erases that image from all your devices signed into the app. This can, and often does, result in users unwittingly destroying important pictures when they try to clear up space in their Google account, unaware that their local copies will also be automatically deleted.

In other words, your searches can now be much more conversational and descriptive. By selecting Undo Device Backup, users can now remove all the pictures and videos stored in Google Photos that are already backed up from their device without deleting any local copies. After running Undo Device Backup, the device will retain all its files as if the backup had never occurred. Unfortunately, Undo Device Backup is still a rather blunt instrument. It lets you remove all of your backed-up content in one go, but it won’t help you remove a smaller selection of files. Suppose you want to delete just one huge video file from your Google Photos library to free up space in your account, but you also want to keep the original copy on your phone. Undo Device Backup won’t let you do this without simultaneously removing all of your device’s backed-up images.

The Gemini-powered feature seemingly understands your photographic history on a much deeper level, letting you effectively treat it as your photographic memory with even more conversational, natural language searches. Only images currently found on your device will be removed from the cloud. If you’ve previously used the “Free up space on this device” option to remove your local copies, then Undo Device Backup won’t remove those images from your cloud backup, as that would result in all copies being deleted. Keeping multiple copies of your most important data, especially precious photos and videos, is always a good idea. You can protect yourself against accidental deletions by periodically using Google Takeout to download a copy of your data onto another device, such as a USB drive. You can also use Google Takeout to transfer your images directly to another service, such as iCloud, bypassing the need to download them first.

There are clearly some privacy concerns around a feature. One way to remove individual images from your online Google Photos backup while keeping them on your local device is to use the Google Photos Locked Folder feature. The method is a little clunky, so be careful and try it with some unimportant images first. If your Locked Folder isn’t backed up, you can move any photos or videos you want into it to remove them from your online backup and keep them stored on your device. The Locked Folder is designed primarily for hiding sensitive or personal photos and videos by securely encrypting them. If your Locked Folder is backed up, its contents will count towards your storage quota.  However, Locked Folder backup can be turned ON and OFF independently from your main Google Photos backup. If your Locked Folder isn’t backed up, any pictures and videos you move into it will be removed from Google’s cloud servers and stored only on your local device. You can then return any Locked Folder items to your photo library at any time. If you don’t turn on automatic backup for Google Photos, they will remain only on your local device. There are some important limitations to this option like:-

You can’t share images directly from the Locked Folder. You can only look at them, delete them or move them back into your main Google Photos library.

As with all images that aren’t backed up in the cloud, if you lose or damage your device, you may permanently lose your Locked Folder pictures, too.

Images in the Locked Folder remain hidden and won’t appear when you scroll through Google Photos or other apps.

Of course, Google isn't proposing recording your every move, just using AI-powered search to understand your life on a deeper level, and only through the photos you share with it. Google says that it's taking a "responsible" approach and states that that "your data in Google Photos is never used for ads" and is "protected with our industry-leading security measures". So while some may understandably have reservations about signing up for a feature that has such a deep insight into their personal life, the considerable flipside is having an AI-powered memory that can help you rediscover forgotten details, or perhaps settle arguments, too.