From next July 10, users will no longer be able to synchronize Google Photos images within Drive. Here's what changes
New news in sight for users of Google Photos and Google Drive: starting July 10, it will no longer be possible to activate the synchronization of photos and videos between these two cloud services. Google, in this way, puts an end to a feature that since its launch has created more confusion than benefits to users.
Since this service has never been very clear even to those who have used it, Google has seen fit to publish a page on the online support of Photos to explain what will happen from July 10. In a nutshell: if we have synchronization active, it will stop working but the photos already synchronized will remain in Drive. Those who want to keep a backup of their photos also in Drive will have to copy the images separately. From July 10 onwards, finally, any change and / or deletion we make in Photos will affect only Photos, any change in Drive will affect only Drive.
The Backup and Synchronization feature remains
Those who use Google Drive as an online backup of their computer's data, however, will continue to have available the feature "Backup and Synchronization". Through it you'll be able to upload photos to the cloud, storing them on both Drive and Photos: a copy of the photo will be uploaded to each service, but it won't take up twice as much storage space. If we delete a synchronized photo or video from the PC, the related file will not be removed from Photos. If we delete the item from Photos, it will not be removed from the computer.
How photo synchronization works today
Until now, it was possible, from Google Photos settings, to activate the option "Synchronize photos and videos from Google Drive". The same option could also be activated from the Google Drive settings, with the "Add automatically" toggle in the Google Photos section. Basically, the photos already in Google Photos were backed up in Drive (in the "Google Photos" folder of "My Drive"). In this way, however, the photos took up storage space even though they had been uploaded to Photos in "High Quality" mode which, unlike "Original Quality" mode, does not take up space in Photos. A setting clearly contradictory, confusing, not at all useful to users and indeed harmful because it stole valuable space on the Google cloud. Recall, in fact, that Big G offers 15 GB of storage space for free to all its users and instead charges, albeit not much, for upgrades.