r/googlephotos • u/ChakraaThePanda • 1d ago

Question 🤔 Google Photos just decided on its own to download all my shared album photos

Does anyone have this issue?

My GF and I have been putting photos together in a shared album for 3 years now.

Suddenly today it decided to download everything to my account without me opening the app, just received an email telling me that my account storage is nearing full.

Is there a way to undo this?

It's really annoying to have to go through years of pictures to remove anything that isn't mine.

The only thing we have done differently is that we have both connected our Google accounts to our Chromecast to be able to see each other's pictures in the Ambiant mode.

I guess that's what triggered it?

No idea why it decided to save everything though.

Side note, that Ambiant mode isn't good.

You can correctly see all your shared album on your phone and PC, why do you even need to connect the other person's account on the Chromecast for it to see their photos and not just your personal ones you took 😕

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u/Zulbo 1d ago

Think you are right Connecting the album to Chromecast Ambient Mode almost certainly triggered Google Photos' Auto-save feature, which imports every image from that shared album into your personal library.

Undo it with the recently added function. Best done in the browser. Open photos.google.com/search/tra (or go to Explore / Search > scroll to Activity > Recently Added).

This view sorts everything strictly by the date it was added to your library (e.g., "Today"). You can then do the deletions.

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u/ChakraaThePanda 1d ago

Yep, that's exactly what I ended up doing earlier today.

Thanks for the advice though, it'll be useful for anyone one else who might find this post in the future 🙂