Why are my photos from WhatsApp or Facebook no longer being saved in Google Photos?

Why are my photos from WhatsApp or Facebook no longer being saved in Google Photos?

Are you one of those who saves all the photos and videos that come to you in your Google Photos account? If so, you should know that Google has made an important announcement that affects the photos and videos that we receive through messaging applications and social networks. A company employee has confirmed in support forums that automatic backups of photos and videos to Google Photos from some messaging and social media applications have been disabled . That is, the photos and videos that we receive through applications such as WhatsApp or Facebook will no longer be automatically uploaded to the Google Photos cloud.

The reason for this change is due, although it may sound a bit strange, to COVID-19. According to the information provided in the forums, the COVID-19 crisis and the quarantine that we have suffered in almost the entire world has caused users to share more photos and videos than usual. So, to save Internet resources, Google has decided to disable the backup and synchronization of folders created by messaging applications such as WhatsApp .

Starting today, when we enter Google Photos, we will see a message that will notify us of this change. According to the well-known XDA developer forum, among the applications affected by this change we have some widely used such as Facebook, Helo, Instagram, LINE, Messages, Messenger, Snapchat, Twitter, Viber and Whatsapp .

All these applications create their own folders on the device when they save a photo or video received, thus being able to have them separate from the photos we take with the mobile itself. What has changed is that these folders will no longer be included in the automatic backup that Google Photos performs .

We can change this configuration so that everything remains the same

Google Photos no longer syncs WhatsApp and Facebook folders

Although the application has deactivated the automatic copy of these folders, it is possible to reactivate it manually if we wish. To do this we have to enter the Google Photos application and go to the Settings menu by clicking on the icon of our account, upper right.

Once here we enter "Photo Settings" and click on "Backup and Synchronization" . Here we will have to choose the last option, "Folders of the device with backup". On this screen we will see all the folders of photos and videos that we have created on our mobile. They generally correspond to the applications that create them automatically, such as WhatsApp.

For Google Photos to continue uploading the photos and videos that we receive through these apps to the cloud, all we have to do is enable the check that each folder has on its right . Once this is done, we will have automatic synchronization enabled again.