Google Photos continues to sync images even after uninstalling

Google Photos isn't all good. Photo: Google

Google Photos isn’t all good. Photo: Google

If you tried Google Photos and decided it wasn’t for you, you may be surprised to find you’re probably still uploading images to the service. Android users have found that even after deleting the Google Photos app on their device, their images continue to be uploaded to their Photos accounts.

David Arnott of the Nashville Business Journal reports that his Android continued to sync his images to Google Photos even after he uninstalled the app, and hundreds of photos he had previously deleted reappeared in his account.

Arnott demonstrates the issue in a three-minute video in which he activates Google Photos sync, uninstalls the app, then takes a photo on his Android device — which then appears on his notebook automatically.

The simple solution to this problem is to manually disable Photos sync before removing the app from your device, but I’m betting a large number of Android users wouldn’t think to do that before uninstalling it; they will just assume that without the app, there is no uploading.

This likely means there are lots of users out there who are uploading to Photos now without their knowledge — and that’s pretty worrying.

Google obviously needs to do something about this, but in the meantime, be sure to disable Photos sync before uninstalling if you don’t want to send your images to Google’s servers. And if you’ve already deleted the app, simply reinstall it, disable sync, then remove it again.