Google Photos does not back photos up automatically

[DaveZiffer]

Today I opened Google Photos on my A03s phone and noticed that said that it was backing up 11 photos, most of which I had taken a month ago. I have the "Backup" setting turned on, implying that the phone should be constantly backing up everything relating to Google, even when I'm not running any specific app. I would have expected all these photos to be backed up weeks ago. Strangely, other photos that were taken around that same time have apparently been backed up automatically. The phone has been on and connected to WiFi for long periods of time since the photos were taken, so this is not a matter of Google waiting to connect to WiFi.

I watched as it backed up all but 8 photos, then closed the app, figuring it was continuing. Now I reopened the app, and now the "backup" screen just hangs, saying that it is "Getting ready to back up" with "8 items left to back up". But it never gets out of this mode. My WiFi has been connected all along, Google Photos was backing up successfully just minutes ago, and now it is hung.

So I tried restarting the phone and then reopening Google Photos. I was pleased to see that it was once again backing up pix. But after backing up just two, it again (without my closing the app) got back into "Getting ready to back up" mode, this time with six pix waiting for backup. So I'm guessing that either Google Photos or Android has some nasty bug that gets it perennially stuck in this mode, which is why my photos aren't automatically backing up on my A03s.

Just one of so many aggravating failures of my Samsung phones.

[DaveZiffer]

Well now this is interesting. This seems to be a well-known problem, particularly among people with Samsung phones of various models, both with and without photos being stored on SD cards: Android app stuck on "Getting your photos..." - Google Photos Community

[Paci]

Is it at all possible that you may have the Google Photos app disallowed from running in the background? The operating system may be automatically closing the background sync process when you exit the app or turn off your screen, which would prevent Google Photos from syncing anything to your Google account. You may also want to check if the Photos app was put into sleep or deep sleep mode because of inactivity, if you don't open the Google Photos app very often.

It may also help to try clearing the Photos app cache, because it could be getting stuck from trying to upload cached photo data that was corrupted. I've had the same issue a few times with my A52 5G, and that usually corrected the issue for a bit.

[DaveZiffer]

I appreciate your suggestions, but it's not any of these things. For a considerable amount of time, Google Photos wasn't capable of backing up my photos even while running in the foreground. (After repeated closures and openings and phone restarts it finally got through all of them.) And it's getting a bit tiring always running around clearing the caches of all my apps. Really? This is a consumer product; 99% of the folks using it don't know what a cache is and probably 99.9% couldn't figure out where to go to clear it. If so many apps need their caches cleared all the time, why don't the apps do it automatically? Oh yes, and if an app's cache is in RAM, then it should be getting cleared every time I reboot the phone. Of course I could also take the approach often recommended by the bots (both human and otherwise) that seem to dominate this site; I could just factory-reset my phone every day.

[realaud]

Did you check your google photos settings? Do you have it set to never use mobile data and/or have a daily data limit?

[DaveZiffer]

Yes I've checked all that. My phones are almost always connected to WiFi and I have no limits set.

[Pampkin]

Hello, did you figure this out? I have the same problem now. I just bought 2TB on Google One. Still have 12K photos to go and stops uploading. Doesn't run in background. Even put it on Never Sleep settings. It must be Samsung. My iPhone friends says it auto syncs. I also noticed the button just says back up now. No longer back up and sync.

[DaveZiffer]

Nope, never figured it out. The only way to ensure my photos are backed up is to open Google Photos on the device with which I took the pix and wait.

[Pampkin]

Oh, this sucks. It must be the phone. 😭 Just re-confirmed with my friends with iPhone and they're not having issues. Their photos today were re-uploaded on their own without Google photos open. Thanks for getting back to me! Wish me luck since I have now 10K to go.

[realaud]

Do you have these screens?  Settings/Google/Manage backup