Google disconnecting photos from drive to simplify users experience

From next month, Google will make some changes to simplify the experience across Drive and Photos, according to a blog post by Dan Schlosser and Jason Gupta, product managers at Google. They wrote, “We’ve heard feedback that the connection between these services is confusing, so next month, we’re making some changes to simplify the experience across Drive and Photos.” This decision is being taken after offering sync between Google Photos and Google Drive for long, and now, Google has decided to end the sync service because the whole thing is too “confusing” for users.

According to the blog post, the changes will take effect in July and separate the two services, simplifying the system in the process. It said, "Starting in July, new photos and videos from Drive won’t automatically show in Photos. Similarly, new photos and videos in Photos will not be added to the Photos folder in Drive. Photos and videos you delete in Drive will not be removed from Photos."

Notably, items deleted in Photos will not be removed from Drive, it said, adding that this change is designed to help prevent accidental deletion of items across products.

Further, it also stated that any photos or videos from Drive in Photos that you have uploaded prior to this change will remain in Photos, adding "If you have a “Google Photos” folder in Drive, it will remain in Drive, but will no longer update automatically."

These changes are to "simplify some features that caused confusion for our users, based on feedback and our own research," and vowed to look for more ways to help support Drive and Photos users going forward.

The search engine has also informed about new “Upload from Drive” feature in Google Photos saying "We’ve heard that many of you would like more granular control when copying photos and videos from Drive into Photos. So we’re bringing a new feature to photos.google.com called “Upload from Drive,” which lets you manually choose photos and videos from Drive, including “Shared with Me” items, to import into Photos."

"Once copied, these items are not connected between the two products. Since photos and videos will no longer sync across both products, items copied in Original Quality will count towards your storage quota in both Drive and Photos."

Further, the backup and Sync for Windows and Mac will continue to work. It said "You’ll still be able to use Backup and Sync on Windows or macOS to upload to both services in High Quality or Original Quality. As before, items uploaded in High Quality won’t count against your account storage quota, and items uploaded using Backup and Sync in Original Quality to both services will count only once towards your quota."