Paul Garcia
Original Poster
May 6, 2018

I used the free up space option yesterday and all the pictures and videos from my phone disappeared

I used the free space option yesterday and my photos and videos were deleted from my phone and drive. I searched in the trash, google photo app, picasa, everything from the troubleshooting section and nothing.
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Last edited Sep 13, 2018
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Leo*
Product Expert Alumni
May 24, 2020
Hijas, photos do not convert to low quality unless you click "Recover Storage." The "Free Up Space" option only deletes the photos from your device (to free up space) but the full quality photos can be accessed (if they were backed up correctly) through the Google Photos app and photos.google.com.
Last edited May 24, 2020
Original Poster Paul Garcia marked this as an answer
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Amanda - Community Specialist
Community Specialist
May 7, 2018
Hello Paul,

Thanks for posting in the Google Photos Help Forum.

Could you please elaborate the issue or your query for me to assist you better? Are you referring to the backed up copy of the photo in Google Photos? It can be possible that the photos weren't uploaded successfully to Google Photos (cloud) and also make sure you're logged in to Google Photos with the same Google Account that you used during the backup. Photos/videos that are not synced or backed up, will still appear in Google Photos and will have this icon  (which means not synced/backed up) or some photos/videos will also show up with the two arrows in a circle mean backup is in progress.
Once the upload is complete there will be no icon on any photos/videos. Often, many of us misinterpret that they are all backed up because the photos/videos show up in Google Photos and we over see the icons on each photo/video. If the photos/videos weren't backed up they cannot be deleted from the Google Photos library nor Trash.

In case, you are uploading a large amount of data (photos/videos), please know that it might take 24-48 hours for the photos and videos to sync across all devices. Please ensure to have 'Backup & sync' enabled on the Google Photos settings while you're backing up your photos and videos. To check is the content is backed up, login in to photos.google.com to checked for your backed up photos and videos. 

However, if you're sure they were backed up, I recommend you looking for your video here:
If a photo/s is deleted from Google Photos, it would go to Trash/Bin for the next 60 days (after deletion). Unfortunately, if the photos aren't found in Trash or deleted from Trash, I'm afraid, you might not find them else where to recover them because Trash is the last resort to retrieve your lost/deleted photos.

Meanwhile, also try giving the below steps a try once again in a sequence to help resolve the issue:
  • Close the Google Photos app and re-launch it.
  • Sign out and sign back in to Google Photos with the same Google Account.
  • Clear App data:
    • Open your device's Settings app (not the Google Settings app).
    • Touch Apps.
    • Select Google Photos in the list.
    • Touch Clear data.
  • Update the Google Photos app on your Android phone:
    • Visit the Google Play Store.
    • Open Google Photos.
    • Touch on Update.
Let me know how it goes.

Best,
Amanda
Last edited Dec 5, 2018
Original Poster Paul Garcia marked this as an answer
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All Replies (131)
Amanda - Community Specialist
Community Specialist
Recommended Answer
May 7, 2018
Hello Paul,

Thanks for posting in the Google Photos Help Forum.

Could you please elaborate the issue or your query for me to assist you better? Are you referring to the backed up copy of the photo in Google Photos? It can be possible that the photos weren't uploaded successfully to Google Photos (cloud) and also make sure you're logged in to Google Photos with the same Google Account that you used during the backup. Photos/videos that are not synced or backed up, will still appear in Google Photos and will have this icon  (which means not synced/backed up) or some photos/videos will also show up with the two arrows in a circle mean backup is in progress.
Once the upload is complete there will be no icon on any photos/videos. Often, many of us misinterpret that they are all backed up because the photos/videos show up in Google Photos and we over see the icons on each photo/video. If the photos/videos weren't backed up they cannot be deleted from the Google Photos library nor Trash.

In case, you are uploading a large amount of data (photos/videos), please know that it might take 24-48 hours for the photos and videos to sync across all devices. Please ensure to have 'Backup & sync' enabled on the Google Photos settings while you're backing up your photos and videos. To check is the content is backed up, login in to photos.google.com to checked for your backed up photos and videos. 

However, if you're sure they were backed up, I recommend you looking for your video here:
If a photo/s is deleted from Google Photos, it would go to Trash/Bin for the next 60 days (after deletion). Unfortunately, if the photos aren't found in Trash or deleted from Trash, I'm afraid, you might not find them else where to recover them because Trash is the last resort to retrieve your lost/deleted photos.

Meanwhile, also try giving the below steps a try once again in a sequence to help resolve the issue:
  • Close the Google Photos app and re-launch it.
  • Sign out and sign back in to Google Photos with the same Google Account.
  • Clear App data:
    • Open your device's Settings app (not the Google Settings app).
    • Touch Apps.
    • Select Google Photos in the list.
    • Touch Clear data.
  • Update the Google Photos app on your Android phone:
    • Visit the Google Play Store.
    • Open Google Photos.
    • Touch on Update.
Let me know how it goes.

Best,
Amanda
Last edited Dec 5, 2018
Original Poster Paul Garcia marked this as an answer
douglas zarnick
Jul 6, 2020
Nice going google Half of the country has lost tbeir precious pics thanks to you. You lie and state safely backed up then we find our pics are gone forever .Nice ! Well done.
We are done .
Rukman Kothwela
Jul 9, 2020
I will use  your google advices  soon as possible so that I want g I through  once again  properly thank you
Synoptic 1
Jul 9, 2020
Who did you say sabotaged this software? The programmer? Or the documenter? You are missing one control. Free space is not the same as delete photos, you free your device but the server does not know it must not reflect your empty device state. I dont see how the server can later know which photos from the server must show in the device, must download everything again because the only way to select a photo is by having the photo visible and select it. There is no control to tell the server to start downloading again photos in their place in a now empty device but only temporarily or you just reloaded the device again! And if you delete the newly reloaded photos the server would need to know what to do with the uploaded originals. So it looks like... this software is INCOMPLETE. 8D This is a known archival problem and it is hard to solve. I am tempted to free 30 GB of pictures but cannot support downloading 30 GB every time I need to find an archived photo and seemingly the app is incomplete for all versions of Android. Better not use it unless this doubt is solved.
Jessabel Jubay
Jul 19, 2020
Same here, receive the notification of clean up space that all are successfully backed up about 30Gb photos and videos and can be viewed anytime in google photos after completed  as I reviwed thousands of photos is no longer seen. All the memories we have was gone, please please i need to restore those precious photos, you shouldn't ask us to do it wont show on the App, those photos were keep and never uploaded 😭😭😭, sont know what to do, feeling like i wanna cry out load and sooo upset about it, i need it restored. 🙏🙏🙏
Breanne Farley
Jul 20, 2020
Please cintact mr i need to fix this. This ia unfair googlr look at all yiur hurting customers. 

Fix ap
Sap
Chris Gross 1501
Jul 22, 2020
This is really messed up. Unlike some people here, I do actually use Google Photos to back up my media, but since they cruelly took away the free original photo quality backup for Pixel phones, I have to back up my original quality photos and videos manually on my computer. I accidentally hit this stupid button and now six months worth of original quality media is gone. I couldn't even stop the process once it started. There was no confirmation screen, it just took off. Force quitting the app didn't work, it just kept going. So while they were backed up to Google Photos, they are compressed and I can never recover my originals. Google is never going to get their act together. The do stupid things like this all the time and they truly do not care. It's infuriating. What a disaster of a company they have become. It's so disappointing.
Last edited Jul 22, 2020
User 13815149753483361504
Jul 26, 2020
Yesterday it's happened to me. This not first accident, last year I had same problem.
I believe all photo already backuped. I was double check accessing via google photo apps and via browser.
After ensuring my photo backuped, I click free up space with confident, and.... bad things happened :
Google app free up folder "camera" from my phone. Then, I check to google apps...my photos also gone.
User 17997501058360253755
Jul 31, 2020
Google, y'all should do something ffs!!!! We are losing our photos outchea
onepunch man
Aug 8, 2020
I wanted my videos in my gallery, but they all disappeared and now I go to google photos and they're there but I can't put them back to gallery. I'm really passed that I pressed free up space, I didn't know that it would do this
Madison Knight
Aug 11, 2020
I agree. This may be a decent option, but its not clear what it will do before you hit the button. I just tapped the button because I wanted to see what it would do. I assumed there would be a nice explanation of what it would do before it actually started deleting stuff. Instead it immediately started deleting my photos, which I didn't want to do, and it took me a while before I could figure out how to stop it, by which time it had deleted about 70 of my photos and videos.
Last edited Aug 11, 2020
Ravi Lunia
Aug 19, 2020
It's the most horrible app to store pictures, well if you cant back up then why prompt to free up space,  pictures hold very important place,  and letting them vanished is sad. I lost nearly 90% of my pictures that were stored in my cell, and looking at all the comments, I doubt I would find them back
Nitai Paul 3512
Aug 23, 2020
I want my old note icon
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