7 ms·

It is worse than that. It fills up your accounts cloud storage, where your Google docs, sheets, drive files etc are stored. Once full you are caught in their t

by nom 1mo ago

It is worse than that. It fills up your accounts cloud storage, where your Google docs, sheets, drive files etc are stored. Once full you are caught in their trap: pay a monthly fee to the mafia or delete your data! This flow is intentional and they have set up everything to bring you there. The Photo-Backup popup (and arguably the whole photo feature) helps to shovel users more quickly to the end of the monetization funnel.

0sdi 1mo ago
storing important files with google is risky business anyway. you could lose them for any other stupid reason, and im sure there is nothing you can do but blame yourself for trusting them.
globular-toast 1mo ago
Gmail uses the same storage space for a few years now. Fill it up and you can't receive emails any more.
- whynou2f 1mo ago
  Even without Photos plenty of users complain in Gmail forums and subreddits - wtf gmail is full At some point people should take self responsibility for their accounts.
whynou2f 1mo ago
Eventually all those valuable pics they take will be lost if GP is disabled and phone is lost or screen damaged. And someone will complain - you can't even have sensible defaults. I understand you perhaps have hatred for google but hosting immich or ente is not for everyone. It is far easier for average Jose to pay for GP or some cloud. Unless you plan to setup at least some free cloud don't bother to lecture others
- tdeck 1mo ago
  I've said "no" to this popup at least 100 times. Under what notion of obtaining consent would it be considered acceptable to ask me again the 101st time?
  - whynou2f 29d ago
    I said no once. Never it asked. My guess is this happens to overzealous privacy people that often clean cache etc. If you are that ana l then why not press and hold app. Disable. Or even leave Google and install something like lineageOS
    - tdeck 29d ago
      I've never once cleared the cache on this app, and you can trivially find hundreds of other people complaining about this same behavior. Why make such an assumption and write it in such an insulting style?
- gertop 1mo ago
  I hate Google and their dark patterns as much as the next guy but I agree: Having the pop-up once or twice or even three times is reasonable. A lot of people value the backup more than their privacy. But after saying no three times, it really ought to leave the user alone...
  - MrMember 1mo ago
    It's a ubiquitous dark pattern. Instead of having a "Yes" or "No" option it's now "Yes" or "Ask Me Later."
- noduerme 1mo ago
  It's also not hard to just connect your phone to your laptop, copy your photos off every month or so, and clear the phone storage. I actually can't believe this isn't the normal way people do things. People pay to let Google keep copies of all their photos?! And I mean, setting up your own self-hosted storage for all your photos is neat and stuff, but seriously, seems like overkill. One folder a year on my laptop / backup drive is sufficient for me. I've got "photos_1998" all the way up to "photos_2016". It's a useful test to see if I remember the order of events in my life, when or if I go looking for something.
  - jasode 1mo ago
    >connect your phone to your laptop, copy your photos off every month or so, and clear the phone storage. I actually can't believe this isn't the normal way people do things. People pay to let Google keep copies of all their photos?! And I mean, setting up your own self-hosted storage for all your photos is neat and stuff, but seriously, seems like overkill. One folder a year on my laptop / backup drive is sufficient for me. Your suggested alternative of moving all photos to a laptop doesn't work for the people who prefer having all their photos accessible from their smartphone. That's the usable UI that the constant sync to cloud services gives them. The tradeoff is the cloud storage subsciption costs. Also, transferring all photos to a laptop creates a single-point-of-failure if the laptop dies. Recovering photos becomes even more complicated when the internal SSD is encrypted with macOS File Vault or Windows BitLocker. Yes, photos in cloud storage isn't really a "true backup" in the 3-2-1 best practices sense but it's still more durable against catastrophic data loss than a single laptop. The self-hosted Immich photo server is just one way to enable smartphone access to all photos and avoid paying for cloud storage. That's the reward for the "overkill" setup.
    - noduerme 29d ago
      Fair enough, I guess if you want access to your entire lifetime photo collection through your phone that makes sense. As far as backups - I mean, that's just a general question of keeping your laptop backed up. I use Arq (highly recommended!) to maintain a remote encrypted backup on a VPS, along with Time Machine to an external SSD.
- rjh29 1mo ago
  I use Dropbox to sync my photos, I still have to tell google not to backup my photos probably 2-3 times a week.
- wvh 1mo ago
  Please don't let it become acceptable to be yelled in the face every few minutes of the day by ads, commercials, notifications and other attacks on our perpetually overstimulated brains, most of which we have no control over at all. To have a healthy relationship with technology requires holding manufacturers and service providers responsible for our mental health.
JimDabell 1mo ago
It’s even worse than that! There is no delete all feature! So if you have 100k photos and make the mistake of saying yes to Google Photos just once, it will fill up all your storage space, block your email until you pay for extra storage, then force you to delete all your photos manually, one page at a time, before you can stop using it. I think that trap is the sleaziest thing I’ve seen Google do.
- bigbuppo 1mo ago
  Mobster tactics from google. Nice. Just remember that Google always kills its products, and they are an advertising company. I'm joking, I hope, but Google ain't what it used to be.
  - BLKNSLVR 1mo ago
    Which part was meant to be a joke?
    - animuchan 1mo ago
      I guess the hopeful one, "Google always kills its products", suggesting that the bad product in this thread is also doomed. I hold this same hope, almost entirely unironically, about so many things.
- Walf 1mo ago
  Careful, don't cloud deletions sync, i.e. remove the previously offline-only files from your devices?
- dwedge 1mo ago
  This was even more annoying when they started including whatsapp backups in your quota and sent a load of people over quota. And as far as I know there's no alternative for whatsapp backups apart from plugging in a USB cable and hoping Whatsapp don't change the method between now and when you need to restore it
  - 1mo ago
gsky 1mo ago
This is true. it happened to a lot of people that i know

by nom 1mo ago

0sdi 1mo ago

storing important files with google is risky business anyway. you could lose them for any other stupid reason, and im sure there is nothing you can do but blame yourself for trusting them.

globular-toast 1mo ago

Gmail uses the same storage space for a few years now. Fill it up and you can't receive emails any more.

whynou2f 1mo ago
Even without Photos plenty of users complain in Gmail forums and subreddits - wtf gmail is full At some point people should take self responsibility for their accounts.

whynou2f 1mo ago

Eventually all those valuable pics they take will be lost if GP is disabled and phone is lost or screen damaged. And someone will complain - you can't even have sensible defaults. I understand you perhaps have hatred for google but hosting immich or ente is not for everyone. It is far easier for average Jose to pay for GP or some cloud. Unless you plan to setup at least some free cloud don't bother to lecture others

tdeck 1mo ago
I've said "no" to this popup at least 100 times. Under what notion of obtaining consent would it be considered acceptable to ask me again the 101st time?
- whynou2f 29d ago
  I said no once. Never it asked. My guess is this happens to overzealous privacy people that often clean cache etc. If you are that ana l then why not press and hold app. Disable. Or even leave Google and install something like lineageOS
  - tdeck 29d ago
    I've never once cleared the cache on this app, and you can trivially find hundreds of other people complaining about this same behavior. Why make such an assumption and write it in such an insulting style?
gertop 1mo ago
I hate Google and their dark patterns as much as the next guy but I agree: Having the pop-up once or twice or even three times is reasonable. A lot of people value the backup more than their privacy. But after saying no three times, it really ought to leave the user alone...
- MrMember 1mo ago
  It's a ubiquitous dark pattern. Instead of having a "Yes" or "No" option it's now "Yes" or "Ask Me Later."
noduerme 1mo ago
It's also not hard to just connect your phone to your laptop, copy your photos off every month or so, and clear the phone storage. I actually can't believe this isn't the normal way people do things. People pay to let Google keep copies of all their photos?! And I mean, setting up your own self-hosted storage for all your photos is neat and stuff, but seriously, seems like overkill. One folder a year on my laptop / backup drive is sufficient for me. I've got "photos_1998" all the way up to "photos_2016". It's a useful test to see if I remember the order of events in my life, when or if I go looking for something.
- jasode 1mo ago
  >connect your phone to your laptop, copy your photos off every month or so, and clear the phone storage. I actually can't believe this isn't the normal way people do things. People pay to let Google keep copies of all their photos?! And I mean, setting up your own self-hosted storage for all your photos is neat and stuff, but seriously, seems like overkill. One folder a year on my laptop / backup drive is sufficient for me. Your suggested alternative of moving all photos to a laptop doesn't work for the people who prefer having all their photos accessible from their smartphone. That's the usable UI that the constant sync to cloud services gives them. The tradeoff is the cloud storage subsciption costs. Also, transferring all photos to a laptop creates a single-point-of-failure if the laptop dies. Recovering photos becomes even more complicated when the internal SSD is encrypted with macOS File Vault or Windows BitLocker. Yes, photos in cloud storage isn't really a "true backup" in the 3-2-1 best practices sense but it's still more durable against catastrophic data loss than a single laptop. The self-hosted Immich photo server is just one way to enable smartphone access to all photos and avoid paying for cloud storage. That's the reward for the "overkill" setup.
  - noduerme 29d ago
    Fair enough, I guess if you want access to your entire lifetime photo collection through your phone that makes sense. As far as backups - I mean, that's just a general question of keeping your laptop backed up. I use Arq (highly recommended!) to maintain a remote encrypted backup on a VPS, along with Time Machine to an external SSD.
rjh29 1mo ago
I use Dropbox to sync my photos, I still have to tell google not to backup my photos probably 2-3 times a week.
wvh 1mo ago
Please don't let it become acceptable to be yelled in the face every few minutes of the day by ads, commercials, notifications and other attacks on our perpetually overstimulated brains, most of which we have no control over at all. To have a healthy relationship with technology requires holding manufacturers and service providers responsible for our mental health.

JimDabell 1mo ago

It’s even worse than that! There is no delete all feature! So if you have 100k photos and make the mistake of saying yes to Google Photos just once, it will fill up all your storage space, block your email until you pay for extra storage, then force you to delete all your photos manually, one page at a time, before you can stop using it. I think that trap is the sleaziest thing I’ve seen Google do.

bigbuppo 1mo ago
Mobster tactics from google. Nice. Just remember that Google always kills its products, and they are an advertising company. I'm joking, I hope, but Google ain't what it used to be.
- BLKNSLVR 1mo ago
  Which part was meant to be a joke?
  - animuchan 1mo ago
    I guess the hopeful one, "Google always kills its products", suggesting that the bad product in this thread is also doomed. I hold this same hope, almost entirely unironically, about so many things.
Walf 1mo ago
Careful, don't cloud deletions sync, i.e. remove the previously offline-only files from your devices?
dwedge 1mo ago
This was even more annoying when they started including whatsapp backups in your quota and sent a load of people over quota. And as far as I know there's no alternative for whatsapp backups apart from plugging in a USB cable and hoping Whatsapp don't change the method between now and when you need to restore it
- 1mo ago

gsky 1mo ago

This is true. it happened to a lot of people that i know