How can I fix this issue associated with the Facebook app's folder location and Google Photos backups?
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I have an issue with a combination of the Facebook and Google Photos apps on my Pixel 4 XL.
The folder Facebook stores the images you save from it is in the DCIM folder. Photos you take with your phone camera are also in the DCIM folder, in a Camera subfolder. Google lops all content within the DCIM folder into a virtual folder called Camera, completely ignoring the subfolder structure within DCIM. So whenever you have to navigate folder structures to select an image, both the images saved on Facebook and the ones taken with the camera are shown in the same location of the virtual Camera folder - the actual subfolders are hidden by the virtual folder.
This is problematic because Google photos can't distinguish these subfolders either. The option to back up files with Google One can only be set on the virtual folder level. So, I can either back up my camera photos AND any Facebook images I've saved, or nothing. I save a lot of memes and they're cluttering up my Google photos. I want to stop backing up the Facebook images.
As far as I can see it, any of the following would solve my problem
- Facebook saves to a different folder not within existing DCIM folder
- Facebook allows you to select which folder to save files in
- Android doesn't allow virtual folders to totally obscure physical folders, to where we could still specify not to back up the Facebook directory in Google Photos
- Google Photos offers some ability to control when backups occur (eg only when charging so I could move the files before they're backed up)
- Google Photos has the concept of a bidirectional sync to where local deletion/movement removes the backed up copies
None of these appear to be offered. The one path I did go down myself was installing the app FolderSync which is supposed to be able to instantly move files from one folder (DCIM/Facebook) to another (just Facebook, with Photos backup disabled on that folder). It seems to move the files right as they're saved, but it does not seem to preempt Google Photos from indexing and backing up the files first so this doesn't work. It also breaks the media index and I have to restart my phone or use an app that manually triggers a media rescan (or else all the original files in the DCIM subfolder appear as error thumbnails during media selection, and the destination ones don't appear).
There are a bunch of posts on reddit and Google support forums about this with no fix indicated. This has been bugging me for many reasons - wastes Google One storage, clutters it up so it's harder to find actual images I took (probably have 10x as many images saved from Facebook vs photos I took), didn't exist in earlier Android versions and would've been able to avoid it with control options that have since been removed, etc.
Asked by John Straka
(411 rep)
Sep 9, 2020, 03:20 PM
Last activity: Feb 26, 2023, 12:00 AM
Last activity: Feb 26, 2023, 12:00 AM