Hack of the Day: Free up phone storage by removing duplicate photos from Google Photos

'The Times of India' brings you 'Hack of the Day'—a new weekday series of quick, practical solutions to everyday hassles. Each hack is designed to save you time, money or stress, using tools and features within your reach—from government websites to everyday apps. In simple terms, it's simple fixes for smarter living.


In today’s world of endless photo taking, it’s not hard to see that your phone storage is full, and your device is running slowly. Google Photos is the ultimate solution to this problem, and it’s a great way to keep your memories safe in the cloud.

What it solves

• Frees up storage space on your smartphone
• Improves the performance of your smartphone by making it less sluggish
• Removes duplicate, blurry, and similar photos automatically
• Organises your photo library and makes it easy to navigate
• Secures your memories by backing them up safely

How to declutter your phone storage using Google Photos

1. Enable Backup and Free Up Space

• Open the Google Photos app on your smartphone.

Click on your profile picture in the top right corner of the screen

• Click on ‘Photos settings’ and then ‘Back up & sync’
• Make sure that ‘Back up & sync’ is turned on to store your photos safely in the cloud
• Click on ‘Free up space’ to see the pictures and videos that are already backed up
• Click on ‘Free up’ to delete them safely from your smartphone

2. Use the Suggest Deletion Tool

• Go to the ‘Library’ tab and navigate to the ‘Utilities’ area
• Select ‘Suggest Deletion’ to identify and mark blurry, similar, or outdated images
• Evaluate the suggestions and delete them one by one, all at once, or move them to the archive

3. Archive Large Videos

• Find and select a large video from the Google Photos app
• Press and hold the video and select ‘Move to Archive’
• Save these videos in the cloud to free up a substantial amount of space on your phone

4. Search and Delete Duplicates

• Employ the search feature to find particular images of people, places, or events
• Find and remove duplicate or unwanted pictures from the search results

5. Evaluate Memory Collections

• Explore the ‘Memories’ collections automatically created to organise related images
• Look at old photos and choose to keep or delete them

Smart tips

• Set up an automatic backup to secure all images before deleting them
• Carefully evaluate the deletion suggestions to avoid deleting images you want to keep
• Employ the archive option for images you want to keep but don’t need on your phone
• Regularly check the storage to keep your phone running in the best manner
• Update the Google Photos app to get the latest functionality and security updates

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