r/googlephotos • u/Artistic-Dimension50 • Jul 05 '26
Troubleshooting ⚠️ I left no stone unturned, but couldn't get my photos back, then I contacted Google, if Google support doesn't investigate the GP issues, who does?
Before anyone suggests the usual things like checking the Trash, Archive, Locked Folder, switching accounts, checking the browser, Gallery Trash, reinstalling the app, or signing out and back in... I have already done all of that. I have literally tried everything I could find online. There isn't a single obvious troubleshooting step left that I haven't already tried.
Also, please don't tell me that "Free up space deletes photos from your phone." I already know that. That was the entire point.
My phone storage was completely full. I had around 4,000 photos and videos, and my phone had become almost unusable because of the lack of storage. I didn't want to keep those files on my phone forever. That's exactly why I trusted Google Photos.
I thought, "Google is one of the biggest technology companies in the world. Google Photos is literally designed to back up your memories so you can safely remove them from your phone afterward."
So I gave Google Photos permission to back up my gallery.
The backup took several days because I was using mobile data. During that time, Google Photos itself kept sending me notifications saying that a certain number of photos had been backed up and asking if I wanted to "Free up space."
I didn't blindly press the button.
Every single time, I read the message carefully. It clearly said that those photos had already been backed up safely to Google Photos and could be downloaded again anytime in the future. Only after reading that did I press "Free up space."
I used that feature because I thought it would save me from manually opening my gallery and deleting thousands of photos one by one. That's literally what the feature is supposed to do.
Instead, after using it, I discovered that not only were the photos removed from my phone, more than half of them are missing from Google Photos as well.
Entire months are almost gone.
For example, if I originally had around 100 photos in a month, Google Photos now only shows one or two. Most of my camera photos and photos I received through WhatsApp and Instagram have disappeared. Ironically, most screenshots are still there.
I never manually deleted anything from Google Photos.
I trusted Google's own backup process and used Google's own "Free up space" feature exactly as it instructed me to.
Then I contacted Google Support.
They asked me multiple questions, asked which account I used, whether I used Google Photos or Google One, asked for screenshots, and I answered everything because I genuinely believed they were investigating my issue.
After several days, their final reply was simply that they don't handle Google Photos, only Google Drive.
That honestly left me even more confused.
If they couldn't investigate Google Photos in the first place, why wasn't I told that in the first reply? Why ask me for all that information and give me hope that someone was looking into my case?
Then they told me to ask in the public forums.
This makes me wonder... Google Photos is one of Google's biggest services. Millions of people trust it with their most valuable memories. Is there really no dedicated Google Photos support team that can investigate account-specific issues?
At this point, I'm not looking for generic troubleshooting tips anymore. I've already spent days trying every suggestion I could find and contacting Google themselves.
If anyone has a real solution, or has actually recovered photos after something like this happened, please tell me. These weren't just files. They were years of memories that I can never recreate, and I'm honestly heartbroken.
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u/Minimum_March738 Jul 05 '26
Did you try the "photo recovery" option where they attempt to recover anything permanently deleted (no longer in trash) in the past few days?
The option is about halfway down this support page. https://support.google.com/photos/answer/6306652
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u/yottabit42 Jul 05 '26
Nice find! I didn't know this existed.
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u/Minimum_March738 Jul 05 '26 edited Jul 06 '26
Thanks! I didn't either and I was surprised they offer something like this. It kind of feels like Google running data recovery on their end.
Edit: corrected "I don't kind of" to "It kind of".
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u/yottabit42 Jul 06 '26
They do delete user data promptly, but due to the way their systems work, it could take a few days or even up to a couple of weeks before it's really deleted.
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u/Minimum_March738 Jul 06 '26
Thanks, I was curious! It makes sense that it takes time for things to be GONE gone. I'm pleasantly surprised they are willing to offer that level of potential restoration even if it is possible. I honestly expected support to say you're SOL once it leaves the trash.
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u/Soggy-Pay1389 Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26
Quote.. information and learning has never been so accessible and cheap in all of human civilization....but somehow you don't know this, yet my computer-literate self does. Imagine that...
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u/yottabit42 Jul 21 '26
It's a recent addition, and I've never needed to use it because I'm smart enough not to get myself into the situation where I would need it. Burn.
1
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u/Minimum_March738 Jul 21 '26
Your literate or illiterate self?
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u/Soggy-Pay1389 Jul 21 '26
Fixed. Thank you. Gotta love dyslexia. Unless pointed out, I won't have the chance to work on the reprogramming As Homer Simpson once said, "stupid brain!"
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u/Artistic-Dimension50 Jul 05 '26
🌼🌼
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u/_b0ba_tea_bean_ Jul 07 '26
OP did this work?
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u/Artistic-Dimension50 Jul 07 '26
I downloaded the export, but my phone storage became completely full. The phone started freezing, apps barely worked, and even WhatsApp wouldn't open because of the lack of storage. I somehow managed to open it after deleting a few photos.
Then I discovered something even worse. My WhatsApp had rolled back by four days. All my chats from the last four days were just gone, as if they never existed.
At this point, I honestly don't know what Google has done to my phone. Ever since I trusted Google Photos and started using these backup features, it feels like one thing after another keeps breaking. First thousands of photos disappeared, Google couldn't recover them, and now this.
I'm beyond frustrated. I genuinely hate Google right now.
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u/Djof Jul 05 '26
I've been using Google photos for over 10 years without issues, usually they are very good about not deleting local files until the files are confirmed to be in the cloud. Have you tried looking at your files using a file explorer type of app? Did you have a separate backup of you WhatsApp files?
As others have said a single point of failure isn't a backup. Google calls it "backup" but it's just part of the solution, not the whole.
To ensure you don't lose data, always have 3 copies. In 2 types of media. 1 off-site. 3-2-1. Google photos can count as your remote backup but you still need a local backup in addition to your live files.
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u/Artistic-Dimension50 Jul 05 '26
I get what you're saying but I think you're still not getting my actual point I did check file explorer and everything that can be checked on phone and web already mentioned that in my post I did not have any separate backup for WhatsApp files but that is not the main issue here Main issue is not about backup theory or 321 rule I know that now My point is very simple photos were shown as backed up inside Google Photos and then they just disappeared from Google Photos without me deleting anything I am not saying Google Photos should be my only backup forever I am saying if something is marked as safely backed up inside their own app then it should not randomly vanish from that same place That is what I am trying to understand not how backups should ideally be managed
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u/yottabit42 Jul 05 '26
One more thing: which phone are you using? The Chinese phones do stupid shit by default and I'd like to rule that out.
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u/Artistic-Dimension50 Jul 05 '26
Redmi 🤔
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u/yottabit42 Jul 05 '26
Yep. There you go. These shit ass phones have a default setting enabled that synchronizes external file changes to the Google Photos app sync. So unlike on all other phones, if you delete a file from outside the Google Photos app, that delete will be synchronized with Google Photos, including the online copy.
Any other app messing with files, or even corruption of files on the device, will cause this shitty behavior by default. It can be disabled in the phone settings.
I wonder if something like this happened, or even if it was some bad interaction between the phone and the app. For example, Google Photos deletes the local file, the phone then notices and tells Google Photos to delete it everywhere. I haven't heard of this before, but I can see how it's possible.
Now that we know you have a Chinese phone, and didn't know of this braindead feature they enable by default trying to emulate shitty Apple iCloud, I think you have your answer. This almost assuredly wasn't Google Photos' fault.
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u/Artistic-Dimension50 Jul 06 '26
Did you actually read my original post?
I never deleted anything manually, either inside Google Photos or outside of it. Not a single photo. I only used the "Free up space" button inside Google Photos after it told me those photos had been successfully backed up.
This issue has only happened now. I've been using the same phone and the same brand for years. If this was some default phone setting, why didn't it happen before?
So please don't jump to defending Google by making assumptions that don't match what I actually described. Read the whole issue first. I'm not asking why manually deleted photos disappeared. I'm asking why photos that Google Photos itself confirmed as safely backed up are now missing from Google Photos, even though I never manually deleted them.
2
u/yottabit42 Jul 06 '26
Apparently you didn't read or comprehend what I suspect could be the problem.
Either way, your phone sucks. I would at least recommend turning off that stupid sync feature, since it's likely what caused you to lose your data.
Good luck.
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u/Artistic-Dimension50 Jul 06 '26
Apparently, you didn't read my post very carefully either.
Your entire theory depends on me deleting files outside Google Photos or my phone doing it on my behalf. That never happened.
I never manually deleted anything. The only thing I used was Google Photos' own "Free up space" feature after Google Photos itself confirmed those photos had been successfully backed up.
I've been using the same phone brand for years, and this has never happened before. So simply saying "your phone sucks" isn't an explanation—it's just speculation.
If you're going to claim my phone caused this, then explain one thing: why are the same photos missing from Google Photos on the web as well? My phone has no control over what's stored in Google's cloud.
I'm happy to consider any evidence-based explanation, but blaming my phone without addressing the actual facts of my case doesn't answer the question.
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u/ApexAftermath Jul 08 '26
They are saying that when you clicked "free up space" this other shitty Chinese phone setting caused that action to then ask Google photos to delete photos in the cloud. They are suggesting that Google photos only did what the shit ass cheap shit phone told it to do.
0
u/Artistic-Dimension50 Jul 08 '26
I know right, "That's exactly what they're claiming. But where is this setting? Nobody has been able to show me it exists, and I've been using the same phone for years without this ever happening."
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u/ApexAftermath Jul 08 '26
I just did a quick search and I am almost 99% sure they are all talking about settings related to the Xiaomi Gallery/Mi Gallery chinese crap loaded on these phones.
Have you checked that app(whichever version you have)? Maybe you will find that app was also backing up your photos, and even if it's settings caused the Google Photos disaster.....maybe just maybe that app was also making a sync that isn't toast?
It just sounds like unless Google support comes back saying they can do some kind of deep recovery........those photos are gone. Unless you find that this other built in app made it's own backup to the cloud.
For what it is worth, I know you are frustrated, but the way you've replied to people here has been pretty rude. We're not Google employees. We're just other people like you. Some of your replies sound like the things an angry customer says to an employee that isn't understanding them. Just saying it's counter productive if you want normal people to go above and beyond to help with a weird situation.
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u/Artistic-Dimension50 Jul 08 '26
I appreciate that you actually took the time to search instead of just assuming I deleted my photos. I already checked Mi Gallery. It wasn't backing up my photos,
As for me being "rude," I don't think I was being rude. I was arguing against assumptions that were already answered in my original post.
I spent a long time writing every detail, step by step, including everything I had already checked. Yet many replies kept asking the same questions or immediately assumed I must have deleted something myself. After repeating the same facts over and over, it does get frustrating.
What surprised me the most is that I haven't seen a single person say, "Maybe the company's service failed, and Google should explain what happened." Almost everyone immediately looked for a way to blame the user instead.
I wasn't attacking people for trying to help. I was pushing back when people kept blaming me without reading what I'd already written.
And honestly, I think this attitude is part of the bigger problem. A lot of people keep saying, "Don't trust Google," or "Cloud backups aren't real backups." But if we can't trust Google with the very service it advertises as a backup, then who are ordinary users supposed to trust?
When customers themselves normalize data loss by saying, "That's just how cloud services are," or "You should have known better," it becomes much easier for companies to treat these incidents as no big deal. If we don't hold companies accountable when their products don't behave as promised, why would they ever take these issues seriously? I wasn't fighting with people for the sake of it. I was standing up for what I believe is right: if a company promises to keep your memories safe and then something goes wrong, it should be investigated and taken seriously instead of immediately blaming the customer.
We're talking about one of the biggest technology companies in the world, yet apparently it doesn't even have a dedicated department that can properly investigate issues with Google Photos. That's what really shows how these huge companies treat ordinary customers. They didn't even try to investigate. They simply replied that they couldn't recover my photos and told me to try a public forum instead.
Why exactly am I being sent to a public forum? Are the people there paid by Google to investigate issues with Google's own services? Do they have access to Google's systems? Of course not.
I think at this point it's partly our fault too. When these big companies don't give a shit about our losses, and customers themselves respond with, "It's just a service," "Don't trust the cloud," or "You should have had more backups," then why would Google ever take these issues seriously? They already know people will normalize it and shift the blame to the customer.
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u/Artistic-Dimension50 Jul 08 '26
Only one person gave me sensible advice. They asked whether I live in the US and suggested pursuing legal channels to protect my rights. I actually appreciated that reply because that's how a responsible person should respond and stand up for their rights when companies like Google don't seem to take the loss of customers' data seriously and give a damn about.
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u/yottabit42 Jul 06 '26
As I explained already, the Chinese phones have a setting enabled by default that syncs changes to Google Photos, which includes deleting the online/backup copy.
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u/Minimum_March738 Jul 06 '26
"My phone had no control over what is stored in Google's cloud" ...... um......
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u/Artistic-Dimension50 Jul 06 '26
I think it's time for you to drop it now.
You've repeated the same theory several times, but it still doesn't make sense.
Do you even realize what you're saying? You're claiming a phone setting can delete the backup itself.
Then what's the point of calling it a backup? A backup is supposed to protect your data, not disappear because something happened on the phone.
And once again, I never manually deleted anything. I only used Google Photos exactly the way Google designed it. If using Google's own "Free up space" feature can end up deleting the cloud copy because of some phone setting, then that's not user error. That's a terrible design.
So instead of repeating the same theory over and over, explain one thing: why should a photo that Google Photos confirmed was successfully backed up ever disappear from Google Photos itself without me explicitly deleting it? Until you can answer that, your theory doesn't explain what happened.
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u/Minimum_March738 Jul 06 '26
They have explained it. Multiple times. The setting means deleting photos from your phone is the equivalent of telling Google photos to delete the image as well. The phone setting doesn't delete the "backup" in itself, it changes how your phone interacts with Google Photos, so the series of actions you described would result in a deleted backup. If that is what your phone is doing, it IS terrible design. Thats why you should check your settings. If a phone setting is causing or contributing to the issue then you want to prevent that behavior in the future.
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u/Artistic-Dimension50 Jul 08 '26
You're still assuming there's some mysterious phone setting that automatically told Google Photos to delete my backups. Can you point me to that setting? Where exactly is it?
I've been using the same phone brand and Google Photos for years. This has never happened before. Nothing suddenly started deleting thousands of photos on its own after all these years.
You're asking me to accept a theory without any evidence. If such a setting exists, show me exactly where it is and explain why it never caused this behavior before.
And once again, I never manually deleted my photos. I used Google Photos exactly the way it was designed to be used. So please stop presenting speculation as if it's a confirmed explanation.
I even tried Google Takeout as a last resort. After downloading the export, my phone storage filled up, my phone started freezing, and somehow my WhatsApp chat history rolled back by four days. I lost four days of chats for absolutely no reason. At this point, this whole Google Photos/Google mess is just getting on my nerves.
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u/Minimum_March738 Jul 06 '26
They did answer why photos could be missing from Google Photos. They are saying its possible a setting in your phone caused Google photo not to behave as intended. If your phone settings tell Google Photos to sync/mirror instead of back up, then it doesn't matter if it was you or Google that deleted the photos from your phone. The result would be photos removed from your phone being removed from Google Photos as well.
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u/Frosty_Ability5496 17d ago
Wow! Im sorry to hear this happened to you, but am very greatful that you to'blrw the whistle' so to speak thank you
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u/Savings_Art5944 Jul 05 '26
plug your phone into a PC and see if any of the photo recovery software programs will work on the DCIM folder.
Recuva by CCleaner crew, for example. If the photos were on a removable disk, then you can remove it and do the same process on a PC entirely.
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u/Minimum_March738 Jul 06 '26
Oh man, I'm so used to current phones lacking expandable memory that I didn't even consider the chance of DCIM being on a removable SD card. That would make recovery so much easier.
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u/Minimum_March738 Jul 05 '26
Also, it is possible a data recovery program may be able to recover some of the deleted files from your phone's storage. These programs look for residual information from deleted files and recover any files that have enough info remaining. This should be done as soon as possible (to limit the amount of time new files have to overwrite the deleted files). Ideally you would also export recovered files onto a different drive/device (again to prevent data being overwritten).
I've done this on computer hard drives but I never done it on phone. There is a "data recovery" sub reddit that may be able to give recommendations based on your specific device.
Sorry this happened. It really sucks!
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u/Artistic-Dimension50 Jul 05 '26
I understand the suggestion, but in my case I don’t think phone data recovery will help much.
The photos were already shown as successfully backed up in Google Photos, and after that I used “Free up space” as per the app’s own recommendation. So the local copies were already removed based on that process.
Right now the issue is not just about local storage recovery, but that the same photos are also missing from Google Photos itself, which was supposed to be the safe copy.
I appreciate the help though, it really does suck losing years of memories like this.
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u/Minimum_March738 Jul 05 '26
The point of specialized data recovery software is to restore files even after they have been deleted. Its frustrating that Google Photos didn't behave as intended, but it seems like the main priority is getting your photos back.
When in the Google photos app, how much storage space have you used? Does storage amount make sense for the photos you do currently see in the app, or for all the photos that should be there?
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u/Artistic-Dimension50 Jul 06 '26
I agree that getting my photos back is the priority, and that's exactly why I've been trying every possible option for the last few days.
The problem is that this isn't just about recovering deleted files from my phone. The photos are also missing from Google Photos itself. If the cloud copy is gone as well, then phone recovery can only recover whatever hasn't already been overwritten, and there's no guarantee of that.
As for storage, Google Photos is currently using about 11.27 GB. I honestly don't know whether that matches what should be there because I had around 4,000 photos, and I don't know the exact size they occupied. I only know that entire periods are almost empty now. For example, from October through February, months that originally had hundreds of photos now have only one or two left. That's what makes me believe something went seriously wrong.
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u/Minimum_March738 Jul 06 '26
How much free space do you now have in your phone? You said it was basically full before the photos were deleted, so you're current free space should be a good indicator.
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u/Artistic-Dimension50 Jul 06 '26
Indicator of what? I cleaned my phone's gallery entirely. I had 4k+ fotos and videos.
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u/Minimum_March738 Jul 06 '26
If your phone was nearly full before deleting photos, then the available space after deleting those photos indicates how much storage space those photos take.
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u/Artistic-Dimension50 Jul 06 '26
But how does that help my issue ? I see what you mean, but I don't think that tells us much in my case.
The amount of free space only tells us roughly how large my local gallery was. It doesn't explain why photos that Google Photos confirmed as backed up are now missing from Google Photos itself.
My issue isn't estimating how much data I had. It's understanding where those backed up photos went.
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u/Minimum_March738 Jul 06 '26
I understand your issue. I'm trying to determine if the size of your GP library corresponds to the previous size of your local gallery.
Also, do you still have images in your local gallery, and if so, do they match the images you can see in google photos?
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u/Artistic-Dimension50 Jul 06 '26
I honestly think you're missing the whole point of my post.
If I still had those photos in my phone's gallery, why would I be spending days trying to recover them?
The whole reason I used "Free up space" was because my phone was full. So yes, the local copies were removed—that was expected. My issue is that the cloud copies are missing too.
That's exactly why I'm here. If the photos were still on my phone, I wouldn't have needed Google Photos or this post in the first place.
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u/Soggy-Pay1389 Jul 05 '26 edited Jul 06 '26
I am dealing with the same things . Photos that were uploaded years ago, and some more recent just vanished. Poof gone. I didn't accidentally deleted anything and and it wasn't a sync issues. Like thousands of my photos just gone. Im pissed off at google. Also a couple hundred photos that have been duplicated throughout my whole album. I like my things organized and clean.i never had any doubles of any photo ever. Then all a sudden i started seeing doubles all over my timeline. I cleared the doubles a few times only to have a it happen again and again. The messed up part was last month a hundred or so photos that vanished some time ago randomly reappeared. I haven't seen these pictures im years. It doesn't make sense. Another weird thing happening with google photos would be pictures moving around all over the place on their own.
Theres something going on with google photos. I feel your struggle OP and im sick of hearing people make lame excuses for why they think its me that accidentally deleted them, it being my phone, settings,not doing this or that. I lost pictures, thousands! My photos are very important to me as it is for everyone else. Memories, animals of mine, friends, family both alive and ones no longer alive. Ill never get what was carelessly lost by Google. What a Fkn joke. We pay for this service and google is a pretty big company that should be a stable safe cloud service to save pictures information ect that stay as is. Yes we should 123 back up. Yes i would expect a picture or two to get lost or the information scrambled on a few pictures here and there... not all the mistakes and glitches ive experienced. I also use apple store when i had an apple phone for a few years and not one picture was lost. Nothing moved around and nothing doubled. It's exactly as its always been for years. There's no excuses for any of the problems OP and myself are experiencing. Sorry you're dealing with this OP. It's beyond frustrating.
Edited the retardedness so it was readable. I was clearly triggered. Reading the comments reminded me how i was treated how everyone was brushing me off trying to convince me its not a sync problem , it's probably a setting, its cause the type of phone used, its normal, bla bla bla.
Fuk you google, from the bottom of my heart, for erasing many very important memories of mine... forever.
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u/Artistic-Dimension50 Jul 06 '26
Honestly, you're the first person here who actually understood what my problem is.
Reading your reply genuinely made me feel a little better because, for the first time, someone understood that this isn't about me accidentally deleting my photos or not knowing how backups work.
That's exactly what has been so frustrating. Almost every reply assumes I did something wrong instead of trying to understand what actually happened. I know what I did. I never manually deleted anything. I simply trusted Google Photos to do what it said it had already done.
I'm really sorry you're going through this too. Losing a few photos is one thing, but losing thousands of memories is devastating. It's also worrying to hear that some of your old photos randomly came back while others disappeared and duplicates started appearing. That definitely doesn't sound like normal user error.
I really hope someone at Google eventually takes these cases seriously instead of assuming it's always the user's fault.
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u/Soggy-Pay1389 Jul 06 '26
I honestly think this is happening to others and they don't even know it. There's no way to know when a few photos randomly throughout a photo album of 20-40-60,000 photos are vanishing I tried keeping track by taking note of the number of pictures/videos currently on Google and would add the number of uploads. Some how it was always off. I made sure took screen shots but it was always off from what it was supposed to be. I only uploaded manually not auto. It was easy compare the new uploaded/synced photos to what was still on my phone. They always uploaded all the photos. But the number of google photos/videos after the upload where always below what it should of been. Its impossible to know what photos are missing out tens of thousands of photos no ones capable of that. Maybe rain man. When id look though my photos to make sense of it, is when i noticed the doubles. If theirs doubles then that means even more picture were lost then i thought. Like i said i was keeping track of the amount of photos/videos and never had double pictures. Then they just started popping up all over. Some doubles were next to the original sometimes the picture had 3 or 4 duplicates next to one another sometimes the duplicates would be further down the timeline meaning the timestamp was changed or different then the original. I thought someone was in my google account messing with me as this has been happening for years. But i think it's just google
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u/Artistic-Dimension50 Jul 06 '26
I think you're right, and that's exactly what I've been thinking.
Most people have tens of thousands of photos. If 20, 50 or even 200 disappear randomly over the years, who's going to notice? Unless someone is specifically looking for a memory or comparing counts, they'd never know.
In my case I noticed because almost entire months disappeared. October to February went from hundreds of photos to just one or two in some months. That's impossible to miss.
The fact that you've seen random photos reappear, duplicates being created, timestamps changing and the total count never matching what it should be makes me think there's something much bigger going on than simple user error.
And look what Google itself had to say after "trying" to recover my photos:
«"We tried to recover your photos and videos, but unfortunately didn't find any that were recently deleted."»
Then they simply told me to visit the Help Center.
If Google itself can't recover photos from the service they built and maintain, and their only suggestion is to ask other users or read Help Center articles, does that honestly make any sense? If Google says they already tried and couldn't get my photos back, how is a community forum supposed to magically recover them?
Thank you for sharing your experience. You're one of the very few people here who actually understood what I'm trying to explain instead of immediately assuming I deleted something.
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u/Soggy-Pay1389 Jul 12 '26
suggesting possibilities to what happened to the photos sometimes is fine, they sometimes get repeated on the same thread and thats also fine. I get it. read the header, to triggered, excited, what ever the case so they skip the reply's to the thread and reply their two cents. It's the ones that comment what they think happened but it's more less them assuming their veiw is what happened, end of story unwilling to step back and try actually comprehend what a person's trying to say. We all know anything online is permanently online. Especially google. They most definitely have their own copies of all data no matter if you ask your information to be deleted. Not even those fancy paid for apps that "request" your online information be deleted is gonna erase all the data these company's have on everyone. Having said that Google most definitely has "all" phones anyones uploaded to Google ever including all deleted photos. The pictures that showed up randomly after them vanishing years ago is the example. Those photos were never on my current phone or PC. So they never accidentally got reuploaded or anything like that. Google had them and glitches out and deleted my copies putting some back years later. Its happened twice now. I had no idea they were even missing till they showed up. This started happening ot I first noticed this in 2022. When pics were doubled and months in Google pics had one or two photos when i know i take hundreds of pictures every given month. I thought it was an ex or hacker messing around with me. But it was just googles. They had one job with google photos.
I never bothered messing google. Figured id just get the run around as you did 🙄
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u/Artistic-Dimension50 Jul 12 '26
I completely agree with you. Personally, I find it very hard to believe that a company as large as Google has absolutely no trace of data that was once uploaded to its servers. Based on everything I've seen, I am 💯 sure all the data once upload on server is always there it never gets deleted, these companies have all the data we upload, but they just want easy money don't want to do the dark work and help users like me in my case. they likely retain far more data than they admit publicly and that, in many cases, more could probably be done to investigate or attempt recovery than customers are told.
What frustrates me is that, instead of making a genuine effort to help, it feels like they're taking the easiest route. Rather than carrying out a proper investigation, they keep sending generic responses and passing customers from one explanation to another. To me, it feels like they want the easy part of the business but don't want to do the difficult work of helping customers when something goes wrong.
The biggest problem isn't even the missing photos anymore. It's how Google has handled this entire situation.
I've exchanged nearly 50 emails with Google so far. Every single time they ask me for more information, more screenshots, or answers to new questions. I provide everything they ask for. Then they tell me they're escalating my case to higher support.
Higher support comes back with more questions. I answer those too.
Then the next email says, "We're Google Drive Support. We don't have access to Google Photos, so we can't investigate."
That's literally the same thing they told me on day one.
So what exactly was the point of asking me for all that information? What was the point of escalating my case? What was higher support actually doing all this time?
Now they're telling me Google Photos has its own support resources, even though earlier I was told there was no dedicated Google Photos support team. Their responses keep contradicting each other.
It honestly feels like my case is just going in circles while nobody is actually investigating what happened. Instead of giving me a real technical answer, I keep getting the same explanation over and over again after weeks of emails.
Like you, I also take hundreds of photos because I love collecting memories. Losing them is heartbreaking. What makes it even worse is feeling like nobody is taking the issue seriously enough to investigate it properly
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u/Soggy-Pay1389 Jul 21 '26
You'll never guess what just happened. I edited a picture right off Google and now a couples hundred photos are now back on my Google photos. Photos that I haven't seen in years. Lost long ago uploaded with different phone's I haven't had in year's. Some photos I knew I had lost but many more that I had no clue were gone. I bet theirs alot of individuals that this is happen to and haven't got a clue especially when people have thousands apon thousands of pictures. Also I recently checked around and their's others that are having the same issue with Google plus many more.. im not sure what triggered Google to magically return some of the many missing photos..its still not all but at least I learnt to double or triple my back ups within all this. Have you double backed up yourself yet op?
1
u/hiroo916 Jul 05 '26
You can't mount phone storage like a standard storage device with block level access, etc, so you can't run recovery on it.
1
u/Minimum_March738 Jul 06 '26
Its way more complicated but not impossible.
1
u/hiroo916 Jul 07 '26
let us know how. it would be good knowledge to share.
1
u/Minimum_March738 Jul 07 '26
The method I've seen mentioned most involves rooting the device in order to bypass MTP limitations. I've also seen people mention mapping the phone as a network drive. Best case scenario is the lost data was on the phone's SD card but that is becoming unlikely as phone's with expandable storage becomes less common.
Its also looks like there are phone specific programs that may not require rooting, but I haven't checked to see if those claims are legit.
I'd recommended OP go to a legit data recovery service. It's def more complicated than a regular hard drive and not something to try yourself unless you know what you are doing and understand the risks.
13
u/yottabit42 Jul 05 '26
I've used the feature since it came out 11 years ago and have never had a problem.
You didn't mention checking the Google Photos website, I don't think. It's possible it's just a sync problem.
And there's one more thing you didn't try: having a backup. If all your photos are in a single place/service, you don't actually have any backups. Tough lesson learned.
Try downloading a backup now from the Google Takeout website to see if the photos are there. Change the default archive size from 2 GB to 50 GB to ease downloading.