Leaked Google Photos Tool Could Reduce What You Pay

Forbes

17 hours ago

New Google Photos features could help you delete unwanted pictures, clean up your storage and save ... More money.
Key Takeaways
Running out of Google Photos storage? Google Photos may soon offer a handy solution in the form of automatic suggestions for photos you might want to delete.
Deleting unwanted photos not only keeps your Google Photos library clear of clutter and easier to manage but can also save you money by preventing expensive Google One subscription upgrades.
As recently revealed by Android Authority, Google is preparing to help you clean up your photo library by automatically suggesting photos you might want to delete. The feature will trigger automatically when you bulk-delete a group of pictures.
Google will likely use a combination of techniques, including AI, to identify potential deletions, possibly including blurry photos, duplicates, screenshots, and other low-quality images, expanding on its existing 'Manage Storage' feature.
How Google Photos Will Help You Delete Bad Pictures
The new suggested deletions feature isn't yet available for use, but code within the latest version of the Google Photos Android app implies that it will soon notice when you attempt to clear out a bunch of pictures in one go and automatically begin looking through your library to find additional pictures you 'might want to delete.'
You'll then be able to review the suggested deletions or turn off the suggestions altogether to revert to the app's current behavior.
Here's some of the relevant text discovered in the app code:
Here, '%1$d' is a placeholder for the number of photos you need to delete in one go before the feature is triggered. This suggests that Google is testing an appropriate threshold, likely around ten pictures, before initiating the deletion suggestion.
Google Photos Automatic Deletion Suggestions: How Could They Work?
Proactively suggesting images to delete is an important step as waiting until your storage is nearly full before cleaning it up simply puts off a time-consuming chore in the future. It also avoids that rushed, panic deletion of pictures that can occur when your storage runs out just when you need to take some important photos.
As always with unreleased features like this, there's still time for Google to make significant changes before release, assuming the function even rolls out at all.
We don't know at this stage whether the new deletion experience will expand upon the types of photos Google Photos will mark for deletion. For example, the Manage Storage feature will only find files that currently count against your Google One storage quota. It won't help find and remove other images that may be cluttering your library.
However, Google is to be commended for developing new functions that benefit the user, even when this will most likely result in reduced revenue from Google One subscriptions. Would you find this feature helpful or intrusive? Let us know in the comments below.
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