Aug 17, 2018

Why do shared photos, "saved to your library" not show up in photos app?

I'm having a bit of a strange issue:

I have a shared library with a friend I'm on holiday with. I can see her photos in the shared library folder and my settings say that they are all being saved to my library.

When I access Google Photos from a browser I see her photos and my own in my library.

However, I only ever see my pictures(the ones I took) in my library when I use the Photos app on my phone. I can navigate to the photos she took in the shared library but I have no indication (in app) that they are actually being backed up to *my* library.

It's great that I can see them in the browser but I don't want to have a shared library forever and I want to be able to see those photos on my phone.

Attached: the screenshot from the browser version shows the picture of the eggs( from my friend, saved to my library) the screenshot from the app is missing this photo and all the others.

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All Replies (10)

Google user

Aug 17, 2018

The web gives you the correct view - the app just is misleading and nothing is backupped in the app - the "backup" is at Google. The most simple action is to log-out in the app, then shut down the app and restart the phone, then start the app and log-in again - then it will rebuild and quite likely more complete.

Alexa Thomas

Feb 2, 2019

The above fix (deleting and re-installing the app) worked for me!

User 851571691387375389

Feb 18, 2019

Camera photo

Spiced Stoat

Mar 7, 2019

Just moving all my photos across. The shared photos only appeared in the "Sharing" Tab until I refreshed the page.

Having ticked the "Share to library" option, all of the shared photographs are slowly moving into my main "Photos" area in my photos.google.com

DropDirtyPalmOil

May 19, 2019

Thanks for that tip Rinus! Logging out/restarting worked for me.

Garry Cool

Jul 18, 2019

Just look through ur album it should be there that worked for my iphone

Peter Gilfoil

Jan 23, 2020

I'm having the same issue with "Saved to library" on a photo sent to me on my desk top computer. There is no explanation and no sign of where google puts the saved photo. It might as well delete the photo when you hit "Saved to library" I developed user software for a living. If I ever wrote software with these results, I'd be fired.

Daniel Andrews 8051

Jan 24, 2020

@Peter Gilfoil - I had what sounds like may be a similar issue and finally figured it out. For some reason a few of my photos were in the archive. On the browser interface you can click on the three stacked bars on the top left for the main menu and then click Archive. I don't know why mine ended up there, still concerning but not quite as bad as completely disappearing,

Hosso Ub

Feb 9, 2020

I'm having same issue. It says "Saved to library". But some photos are not saved.

Rob Bednark

Feb 16, 2020

Here's another workaround: in the browser, add a description to the photo, e.g., "birthday", and then in the Google Photos mobile app, search for the text, e.g., "birthday". This worked for me.

Another workaround might be adding the photo to an album using the browser, and then look for that album in the Google Photos mobile app.

Last edited Feb 16, 2020