How to Stop Google Photos from Backing up Phone Camera Images or Videos

It is a relief to know that you can store your photos, videos and files from the local storage of your mobile devices to a cloud storage. If your phone gets lost or damaged, you still have access to your wonderful memories. Google Photos allows you to back up and upload all your camera images and videos automatically in the background, so you have another copy when a problem with your phone arises. You can even share or access these pictures on other devices as long as you are logged in to the same Google account.

However, it is important to note that Google Photos has limited storage space if you use the free version. You can only use up to 15 GB of storage, which you still share with your Google Drive and Gmail documents. When you have more files uploaded on your Google Drive, it will reduce the size of the storage space you can use for your Google Photos.

Now, don’t be surprised if Google notifies you that your storage space is full. Google automatically backs up pictures and video files that you store on your Camera library. The more you screenshot you take and pics you capture on your smartphone, the more Google will sync and add them to your Google Photos which will count against your free storage limit.

One way to prevent using up your Google account storage space is to stop Google Photos from backing up and uploading your camera images and videos.

How to Turn Off or Disable Backup and Upload of Camera Images & Videos on Google Photos App

You can turn off or disable Google Photos from backing up your camera images and videos either on your Android phone/tablet or iPhone/iPad iOS mobile devices. Follow the steps below to find out how you can do it on your phone using the app.

• On your smartphone, open the Google Photos app.
• Sign in to your account, if necessary.
• On the top right corner, tap your profile picture.
• Select Photos settings.
• Tap Backup and sync.
• Toggle the button to Disable next to Back up & sync.
• Exit your Google Photos app.

Google Photos will stop backing up all the pics from your smartphone. But, remember that you may lose all your photos on your mobile device without a backup. If the 15GB free storage is not enough, you can upgrade your account to Google One’s paid plan. For $1.99 per month, you will get up to 100 GB of storage.

Is the free 15GB on Google Photos enough for all your images? We would love to know your answer so please write to us below.