How to stop Google Photos from backing up (all photos, or just private ones)
Turn off Google Photos backup or limit it to some folders, remove photos from the cloud without deleting them from your phone, and keep private photos out.
· 7 min read
With backup on, Google Photos uploads every photo you take, usually within minutes, and keeps the copy in your Google account long after you've hidden or deleted it on your phone. Here's how to stop Google Photos backing up completely, stop it for some folders, remove photos from the cloud without deleting them from your phone, and keep private photos out of the cloud in the first place.
How to turn off Google Photos backup
- Open Google Photos and tap your profile picture or initial at the top right.
- Tap Photos settings, then Backup.
- Turn Backup off.
New photos stop uploading straight away. Nothing is deleted: photos already backed up stay in your Google account, and every photo on your phone stays on your phone.
How to stop backing up some folders
You can keep backup on and choose which folders it covers. Your camera photos are backed up whenever backup is on, and the folder list controls the rest, such as screenshots, downloads and chat apps' folders.
- In Photos settings → Backup, tap Back up device folders.
- Turn off the folders you don't want backed up.
- Consider turning off Back up all device folders, so new folders aren't backed up automatically.
What Google Photos' delete options really do
Google Photos has several ways to remove a photo, and they're easy to mix up:
| Option | On your phone | In your Google account |
|---|---|---|
| Delete (with backup on) | Deleted | Deleted, and on every device with backup on |
| Delete from device | Deleted | Kept |
| Free up space | Deletes photos that are already backed up, except some recent ones | Kept |
| Turning backup off | Kept | Kept |
Deleted photos go to the trash, which Google empties after 30 days. To get rid of them sooner, see how to delete photos permanently.
Be careful with Free up space. It's in the menu under your profile picture, and it deletes the phone's copies of photos already backed up. The photos stay in your Google account, but they're no longer in your phone's gallery or available offline. That's the opposite of what you want if you're trying to keep photos off the cloud.
How to stop backup without deleting photos from your phone
Turning backup off never deletes anything. The tricky part is removing photos that are already in the cloud while keeping them on your phone, because deleting a backed-up photo in the Google Photos app deletes it from your phone as well. Google's way to do it:
- Turn backup off in the Google Photos app, on every device where you want to keep the photo.
- On a computer or in your phone's browser, go to photos.google.com and delete the photos there.
- Leave backup off. Google warns that turning it back on later may delete the phone's copy of photos you deleted online.
Keeping just your private photos out of the cloud
Most people don't want to stop backup entirely, just for the photos nobody else should see. The catch is timing: by the time you think about hiding a photo, Google Photos has often already uploaded it. A few ways around that:
- Take them with a private camera. A secret camera app saves photos straight into a locked space, so they never reach a folder Google Photos backs up.
- Move them into Locked Folder, with its backup off. Locked Folder keeps photos out of your grid and other apps, and its backup can be turned off. Anyone who knows your screen lock can still open it, as our Locked Folder comparison explains.
- Move them into a vault. A vault app removes photos from your phone's folders, so there's nothing left for Google Photos to back up.
Whichever you pick, delete any copy Google Photos already uploaded, then empty the trash. Our guide to copies left in Google Photos walks through it.
How Hidey keeps photos out of Google Photos
When you hide a photo in Hidey, it's encrypted on your phone and the original is deleted from your gallery, so Google Photos never sees it again. Hidey reminds you the first time that copies already uploaded stay in Google Photos until you delete them there.
Hidey's own backup is separate from Google Photos: it goes to a hidden folder in your own Google Drive, encrypted before it leaves your phone, so it never appears in your photo library. The trade-off to know: that backup also lets you reset a forgotten PIN through Google after a 24-hour wait, so whoever controls your Google account could reset it too, unless you turn on zero-knowledge mode (Pro). Here's what Google can and can't see in that backup.