Photos

[HumbleLuis]

First we get hit with the forced to switch to Google messenger now once again my photos disappeared from my device and then I get message from Google to upgrade to larger storage plan. 

I went from 1,000 down to 279 photos, even the photos in the messages can't be opened L M F O A

[AAbbott]

Google storage limits includes all photos backed up, everything in G-Mail (including sent, trash and spam messages and attachments), so keep your Gmail folders clean and strip attachments from any emails you are saving (download them).  It also includes anything you may have saved to Google Drive (if anything).  How many photos you have is irrelevant, it's the size of the file that matters.

[HumbleLuis]

When you only use 91GB out of 300 GB of storage and both smaller and larger size photos and videos are being deleted, it matters!
And yes, I do delete my old emails and download my photos and videos to an external hard drive!
But I'm in the middle of writing a book and haven't had a chance to do so in the past month, and now I've lost a lot of photos that go with the book, and I'm talking about stuff that can never be replaced!
Yes, it's my fault, but the people should be notified before Google or Samsung deletes anything, and that's something that I have not received from either of the two!
This stuff that's going on suddenly uppered out of nowhere.
One should question if this has something to do with the lawsuit that's going on with Google, and now their another company going the the same B S. also.

[AAbbott]

Are you by any chance an Amazon Prime member?  Amazon has unlimited photo storage (backup) for Prime members (only 5GB for non-prime).  Won't help you recover any lost photos, but something to keep in mind for the future.  Deleting anything from Amazon Photos will not delete anything from your gallery.  

I actually am a bit surprised, as Google usually sends a warning when you are approaching your storage limit (so I hear, I have never even gone near the limit), because they try to sell you more space.  You can check your storage capacity at any time by opening Google Photos and tapping on your initial - the storage graph is right there.

[HumbleLuis]

No prime, I have no need for additional features from Amazon because I only order from them maybe 3-4 times a year, lol
I'm the type of guy that if I can't see or touch it first, I don't want to buy it...lol

[AAbbott]

I believe you can just buy a storage plan if you are not prime.  Another, less convenient, option would be to attach your phone to an external device on a regular basis and copy/backup your pictures to that device.  Any cloud storage service is going to charge a fee after any free storage allowance.

[FWoodward]

This just started happening to me. I can no longer attach pics to text messages from my phone; it pulls them from Google cloud. And when I went to remove pics I only wanted on my phone but not backed up to the cloud, it deleted from both. It never used to happen like this. It's really, really annoying. I want certain photos only on my phone and not backed up, but that's no longer an option. I'm going to try creating a new folder outside of the gallery folder to save pictures and see if that will work. I will now have to do extra steps to send pics in text. So aggravating.

[HumbleLuis]

Something big must be coming from both Samsung and Google for them to be doing what their both doing now!

[AAbbott]

If you remove pictures from Google, they will also be removed from your phone.  The only way to prevent this is to move the photos from your phone to a flash drive, then access your photos through Google Photos.  If you remove them from your phone, then delete them from Google and put them back on your phone, they will once again back up to Google, unless you turn Google backup off - which you can absolutely do, as long as you remember to back up your precious photos elsewhere on a regular basis.  You are not required to use Google backup services - it's just a convenience. If you happen to be an Amazon Prime member Amazon has unlimited photo storage and will back up directly from your phone and nothing you delete from Amazon will be deleted from your phone.

[HumbleLuis]

So, I tried the switch to Google message, and all I got out of it was the Google message app icon...
So, I had to switch back to the Samsung messaging app.
Yes, I followed the steps given and even did a restart, and still nothing.😂

[AAbbott]

Are you saying the app did not open when the icon was placed on your home screen?  Or are you saying your messages didn't populate?  If you have a lot of messages it could take several hours to several days for all your messages to appear, while Google (or any other messaging app you switch to) reindexes them.  Since all messaging apps are actually just shells to contain the messages (like email apps), what's in one messaging app will be in the others.  You can't uninstall the app by the normal uninstall process - you have to go to the Play store, search for the app and uninstall it and reinstall it from there. To make sure you have all your messages, you can download a small app called SMS backup and restore and backup all your messages, so if anything should get fouled up, you will be able to restore the messages to any messaging app you decide to use once Samsung messages is gone.