Looking for information about how Storage Manager works
I inadvertently enabled the storage manager slider in the storage settings earlier today, which I later discovered deletes photos/videos over a certain age if they are backed up. My camera roll is backed up, but not in original quality, so I don't want to do this. I turned it off and I don't appear to be missing any media, but I have three questions to confirm this which I couldn't find elsewhere on the internet.
- Does the storage manager work retroactively to delete media that existed prior to it being enabled, or only media created after the fact?
- Does media deleted in this manner show up in the "Recently Deleted" folder?
- Is a warning given before any media is deleted?
Thanks in advance for any help.
Edit: I should add that my backup of choice is Google Photos - can my phone even see that stuff is backed up there? I can't find a OnePlus backup service however...
Posted Oct 3, 2022, 7:31 PM UTC · edited
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I believe so if the media meets the criteria once it's activated (backed up and past a certain age)
It may or may not, I'm not 100% sure about this
I don't believe so, you may get a notification that it's running but it won't ask for permission once enabled.
As far as uploading in full quality or storage saver, it depends on your settings and whether or not you have space on Google's servers. I just upload mine in storage save though, I don't notice a noticable dip in quality for my purposes.
Thanks for the quick reply to my comment! Unfortunately all worrying answers, for something that can easily be enabled with no real explanation of what it does, unless you click on the text (which I didn't realise you could do). I've checked again, and I don't seem to be missing any photos, though I can't check them all!
So just to confirm, your storage manager deletes photos from your phone that are backed up at "storage saver" quality? This is my main concern, as that is still a potential data loss (even though the difference is negligible as you rightfully said).
Iirc google automatically changed to uploading photos in storage saver quality when they dropped the unlimited free backups for photos some years back.
For example my Pixel 5 still has unlimited backups but only at "storage saver" resolution. If I wanted to upload at full quality it would go against my Google storage amount (15GB free unless you pay for more)
Thanks, but I know all about the Google side of things. I just wanted to confirm that your OP6 (with storage manager enabled) deletes photos from the device memory when they are backed up as "storage saver" to Google Photos.
Sorry if I'm getting you to repeat yourself here, I really appreciate the first hand knowledge. I just think that the above statement is the most important information needed to ascertain if I've done any damage. In my head it makes sense that if they aren't backed up in their original form then storage manager shouldn't clear them, which would then confirm that none of my photos have been deleted following my little mistake. I'll be really annoyed if they have, since my storage is only 23% full after over 2 years with the phone!