In early 2013, a rather strange application showed up in the app drawers of all our Android devices. It was green in colour and the gears that made up the icon symbolized that it had something to do with settings. Of course it’s name was Google Settings. As part its plan to streamline several processes, Google was introducing a new application to give users of its services and apps more control. That small application has since shed off its green work overalls for grey ones but kept on doing the same things. Unbeknownst to most of us, it appears it also has the final say on how your precious memories are synced to Google’s cloud.
Say you took Google Photos for a spin as soon as it debuted but got pissed off by its compression or simply weren’t that impressed and desired to go back to Flickr, OneDrive, iCloud or the tens of other cloud backup options available out there. The first thing you’ll do is to uninstall the Google Photos application from your Android smartphone. Or clearing your data in the settings. That’s enough, right? Your photos will no longer be synced to some remote Google servers, right? Wrong. All that you’ll miss is notifications from Assistant alerting you of the latest collage from your most recent collection of selfies but syncing will still be happening in the background.
Doing away with the Google Photos application does not in any way interfere with the constant synchronization between local and cloud of your latest snaps. That hideous Google Settings application holds the key to everything. Only when you turn off ‘Google Photos Backup’ in the Google Settings application will your photos stop being uploaded to the cloud.
This is one of the things that Google was never clear about upfront. It took writer David Arnott to point out this before the whole world realized that Google had knowingly made the opt out process from its Photos application a little bit complex. Seriously, who usually turns to that Google Settings app to manage things on a regular basis? Google believes it has done no wrong but at least now you know what to do in case Photos is not your cup of tea.
Something kind of annoying/scary I discovered with Google Photos on my Android phone. 1) Months ago, I downloaded the app to play with it
— David A. Arnott (@ArnottACBJ) July 8, 2015
2)but I didn’t like it and so uninstalled the app after just a few days. This evening, I went back to Google Photos on my laptop and found — David A. Arnott (@ArnottACBJ) July 8, 2015
3)a crap-ton of pictures Id taken in the interim. It seems that even AFTER I UNINSTALLED the Google Photos app it was still syncing pictures
— David A. Arnott (@ArnottACBJ) July 8, 2015
4)from my phone when on WiFi. Obviously a problem.
— David A. Arnott (@ArnottACBJ) July 8, 2015
5)I deleted all those photos, re-installed the app, found the syncing option and turned it off.
— David A. Arnott (@ArnottACBJ) July 8, 2015
6)Because I don’t trust Google Photos anymore, I’m keeping the app to make sure the syncing is turned off — which is DEEPLY stupid.
— David A. Arnott (@ArnottACBJ) July 8, 2015
Read our in-depth review of Google Photos here.
