If you're one of those people who never deletes the hundreds of photos on your smartphone that are taking up precious memory, Google Photos can now lend a hand. The service, which automatically backs up every photo you take, has introduced a new feature that will help you erase images from your device once they're backed up.
The update to Google Photos on Android has introduced a 'Free Up Space' button on the settings screen, selecting it will bulk-delete all photos from a device that have already been backed up to the cloud, freeing up space for you to take even more photos. To make sure people don't accidently delete photos that they want to keep on their smartphones, Google asks users to double-confirm their intent before the action takes place.
On certain Android devices, the new feature will also be able to delete backed-up photos from the SD card.
Users who back up their photos in High quality (smaller file, compressed file) may also receive an Assistant card prompting them to bulk delete device copies when they're nearing the storage limit on their device. Currently, only the users who back up their photos in Original quality (large file, full resolution) receive these cards.
The final part of the update lets people free up some of their cloud storage space. It allows users who have backed up their photos in Original quality - which counts against their Google storage quota, unlike those uploaded in High quality - downgrade all of their images so they don't take up space on Google Drive.
The feature is currently rolling out on Android and will make its way to iOS "soon."