How to Delete All Photos From Google Photos

September 11, 2024 By Christine Margret No Comments 7 minutes

This blog will help you learn how to delete all photos from Google Photos. Storing and sharing pictures on Google Photos is a common practice these days, but do you know that it threatens your privacy?

Delete All Photos From Google Photos

Google has a surveillance-based business model, collecting and using a lot of consumer data. Moreover, Google Photos drains a lot of capacity. Earlier, the platform claimed free unlimited storage for quality photos; later, charges and limits were imposed.

Therefore, to help you maintain your privacy, this guide will show you how to safely delete photos from Google Photos without deleting them from your device.

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Why You Should Consider Deleting Photos From Google Photos?

There are many privacy risks associated that might convince you to delete all your photos from Google Photos. Here are a few reasons to ditch Google Photos:

1. Security and Vulnerability Issues

Security and vulnerability have been a prime issue for Google. In 2019, cybersecurity experts found a bug in Google Photos that could lead to private data leaks through web browsers. This problem allows hackers to access sensitive information, including photo locations and dates. Hackers can easily exploit Photos by measuring Google Photos’ response times to user requests after the users visit a malicious website.

Although Google immediately resolved this issue, but similar things could happen in the future. This is undoubtedly a high risk since Google Photos contains much of your private information.

2. Privacy Issues

With the help of AI, Google can face recognize photos and automatically transfer them into a separate folder or album. This clearly indicates that the app collects and analyzes users’ biometric data. Google Photos monitors users’ interests and activities to personalize their experiences and profiles. Lastly, if you choose to disable your location settings, still the service can access and determine your photos location.

How to Delete Photos from Google Photos

There are different ways to delete Google Photos from your device, cloud, or other platforms. Additionally, you can either restore deleted files or permanently remove them. Let’s discover each method in detail.

How to Delete Photos From Google Photos Without Deleting From Your Phone

You can keep your photos on your device while deleting them from Google Photos. You can either use the Google Photos app (on Android or iOS) and Google Photos in a browser (on a computer).

Note: Using a computer will delete all photos in a row. It is faster compared to other methods.

Delete Google Photos From Photos Using the Google Photos App

Launch the Google Photos app.
Tap your profile icon in the top-right corner.
Head to the Backup & Sync section. If you haven’t backed up your photos yet, tap the cloud icon to turn on backup, wait for the photos to upload, and then turn it off.
Go to Google Photos settings.
Select the “Manage device storage” option.
Tap “Free up space” and confirm the action.

Delete Photos From Google Photos Using Google Photos in a browser (on a computer)

As mentioned above, removing your photos from Google Photos is a quicker and much easier way. With this method, you can simultaneously hold the shift key to select and delete multiple images. Here’s how to do it:

Disable backups on all mobile devices where you want to keep your photos offline.
Open a browser, go to Google Photos, and log in.
Select the photos you wish to delete.
To select multiple photos in sequence, click the first photo, hold Shift, and click the last photo.
To delete all photos, click the most recent photo, scroll to the bottom, hold Shift, and click the earliest photo. Ensure all photo thumbnails load by scrolling manually rather than using the scrollbar.
Click the trash icon in the top-right corner and confirm by selecting “Move to trash.”
Head to the Trash section on the left side.
Click “Empty trash” in the top-right corner and confirm by selecting “Empty Trash.”

How to Delete All Photos from Google Photos At Once?

Now, if you are exhausted with tons of photos and want to delete them all at once, here’s how you can delete it all:

Log into your Google account and open Google Photos.
Select one photo and checkmark on its top left corner.
Scroll down to the last photo and select it while pressing and holding the Shift key.
At the top right corner, click Delete permanently.

How to Delete Google Photos on Cloud Only

You should delete Google Photos from the cloud only if your main concern is privacy. This step will clear your Google Cloud storage while retaining your photos in the gallery on your iPhone or in the File Manager app on your Android device. However, remember that if you will turn on sync in the Google Photos app, your pictures will be reuploaded to the storage. To remove your photos from the Google Photos cloud only, follow these steps:

Launch the Google Photos app on your device, tap your profile icon in the top-right corner, and disable backup.
Visit the Google Photos website and choose the photos you wish to delete.
Click the trash bin icon in the top-right corner of the screen.
Confirm your action to confirm the deletion.

How to Protect Your Cloud-Stored Data?

To protect your cloud-stored data and other private information, always use a VPN. FastestVPN offers 100% security for your cloud storage with a range of powerful security features. It protects your data from online snoopers and hackers with a top-notch encryption standard. The best thing is that FastestVPN comes with a 31-day money-back guarantee. It’s completely risk-free.

How to Delete Google Photos From Everywhere

Using this method, you can delete your photos from Google Photos, device and cloud storage. Ensure backing up your files to another device before proceeding.

Open the Google Photos app and select the stuff you wish to delete.
Tap the trash bin icon to remove the selected files.

How Does Google Photos Syncing Work

As a Google researcher, I can assure you that while using Google Photos, the sync feature automatically uploads your smartphone camera photos to the cloud, which ultimately makes them accessible on all devices linked to your Google account. So, in case you made your mind to turn off syncing, your new images will be restored on your device only and will not be uploaded to the cloud.

However, keep in mind that if you delete a photo in Google Photos, it will be removed from all synced devices unless your syncing feature is turned off on each device.

Moreover, if you re-enable syncing, it will prompt Google Photos to display and potentially delete any photos not previously backed up, removing them from both Google Photos and your device.

Conclusion

If you are a privacy advocate, then deleting all your photos from Google Photos will be a life savior. You can switch to reliable photo storage services to keep your data safe and secure at all times. If you wish to remove your images from Google Photos, you can read the above guide to efficiently clear your Google Photos account and free up valuable storage space.