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Google Photos Doesn't Stop Auto Backup Even After Uninstalling: Here's How to Fix It

Google Photos Doesn't Stop Auto Backup Even After Uninstalling: Here's How to Fix It

By Ali Pardiwala | Updated: 13 July 2015 14:40 IST

The risk of losing all of your precious photos in case of smartphone or memory failure is a major concern for people today. This has led to the development of a number of photo backup apps, which store your photos in a personal cloud account, so your photos are safe even if something goes wrong with your phone. One such app is Google Photos, the recently launched app that has become a popular option among Android users.

However, if you find that Google Photos isn't working out for you, you can always uninstall it and try something else. Be warned, though; simply uninstalling the app does not turn off cloud backups for Android users. Your photos will continue to back up according to the original backup options, which mean that this could be consuming valuable bandwidth by uploading photos to Google Photos.

(Also see: Google Photos With Free, Unlimited Storage: 10 Things You Need to Know)

This leads to some serious privacy concerns, as it isn't unreasonable to assume that once you uninstall an app or service, your relationship with that app is over. Arguments for this approach in Google's favour are that Google photo backups are available on multiple platforms with various apps, so simply uninstalling a single app does not mean that you might want your backups switched off. This is a privacy concern however, as Google is guilty of misleading users by not explicitly stating that automatic backup will continue once initiated and until is switched off. Without this knowledge, users would be unaware their photos, which may be more private than they want Google to have access to, to continue to be uploaded to the Mountain View giant's servers.

If you do want to switch Google Photos' automatic backup off, luckily the fix is easy. The Google Settings app within your app drawer offers the solution. Since 2013, Google has implemented this single interface for all key settings related to your Google account, and this can be used to switch off photo backups even after you've uninstalled the Photos app. Simply go to the Google Photos Backup tab within Google Settings and switch it off. You can also choose to leave it on and change backup settings as per your convenience.

The fact that Google Photos continues automatic backup even after installing app was first reported by David Arnott from the Nashville Business Journal. Upon contacting Google to see whether this was a bug or a built-in feature, Arnott was told "The backup was as intended."

Google Photos recently also ran into controversy when it's photo-labelling algorithms mislabelled people of the African American community as gorillas. The company has profusely apologised for this and has since fixed the problem.

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