Google Photos Taking Over My Gmail

[Quenched]

I have had a warning on my gmail since yesterday saying that after 14th of June I will no longer be able to recieve or send emails from my gmail account unless I delete videos and photos from my Google photos. 

 

I could just back up the photos and videos, and delete the whole lot to solve the issue with my Gmail account. 

 

But my question is why are photos on my phone affecting my gmail account?  I don't understand why the two are connected.

 

Their even suggesting I buy more space to solve the problem, or delete photos. But this is confusing as I've had this phone for 5 years now, and never had an issue like this until now. 

 

Is this something new, or have I coincidentally just reached my capacity? 

[barry1010]

Google has been backing up your photos and videos and they have filled up the  space in your free Google account where your emails are also stored.

[Buenchico]

Google's free storage is shared across Google Drive, Gmail and Google Photos.  So excessive use of any one of those can affect the other two as well.

(Note that the problem wouldn't arise if your photos were only stored on your phone.  However you've clearly got it set up to automatically back up your image in Google Photos).

[Quenched]

barry1010, 

Ok thanks barry, but I didn't really want google to store my photos or videos, surely they can be stored on the phones space?

I checked my phones hard drive or space, and its not even half full. 

 

How can I prevent my photos going to Google?

 

I suppose I could just abandon Google altogether, and use an alternative email like yahoo or something, but I have too many contacts with my gmail account. 

 

Ultimately I want to stop every photo I take to go to the google photos app. Is this possible? 

[Buenchico]

See here:
https://support.google.com/photos/thread/270151524/how-to-turn-off-backup-in-photos?hl=en

[Quenched]

Buenchico, 

Thanks, managed to turn off sync and back up in google. 

 

I think I might have my gmail back, says it might take a while to sort itself. 

 

Just seems strange after 5 years this raised its head now isn't it? 

[THECORBYLOON]

It's not, "strange", it's taken until now to reach the limit you're allowed to store for free.

[netherfield]

Mine is this some times, get a message saying it's 80% full. I just go through gallery on my phone and delete lots of useless stuff.

 

[Old_Geezer]

Does the Google tech still read folk's e-mails ?  Or is that now past history ?

[Quenched]

THECORBYLOON, 

I think it was strange for me due to its never affected my gmail account before, and I've had that one over 10 years. 

 

I think google are crafty because they lure you in by storing photos for free up to a certain storage amount, then threaten to disable your Gmail unless you buy more storage, thats exactly what happened to me. 

 

But I have disabled sync my photos and deleted a few pointless photos and videos, and hopefully I'm back to normal.. 

 

I thought Google was quite abrupt the way they worded emails will stop sending or recieving unless you start a monthly storage payment. At first I thought it was spam. 

[DDIL]

It's only affected you now because you have only just reached your limit.

[Quenched]

Old_Geezer, 

I think given in this day and age so many personal details are sent via emails and not actual physical mail, it wouldn't be appropriate for google or whoever to actually rummage around and read people's emails. It would be like opening someone elses letters wouldn't it? 

[Buenchico]

^^^ Google stopped scanning emails for the purpose of sending out personalised ads back in 2017:
https://money.cnn.com/2017/06/23/technology/business/google-ad-scanning-email-stop/index.html

However they still scan emails for general security purposes (such as identifying viruses or child porn content).

Other companies, such as Yahoo, are known to scan emails at the behest of the US government:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/04/yahoo-secret-email-program-nsa-fbi

[Quenched]

Buenchico, 

So basically Google gets to see all manner of personal details anyone could recieve or send to another party, and bare in mind these days that could be anything from really personal health details, bank details, the list is endless in todays age of a very paperless era. 

 

Personally I don't think that is right, and does it mean we have to put our trust in companies like Google, Yahoo etc etc?

 

For a start we don't know who works for Google, and if any one of them can be trusted. 

 

It really is the equivalent of opening someones personal letters, and who would actually do that?

 

I wouldn't dare open anyone in my family's letters, or miss sent letters to my house, I would never do that. But with emails its exactly what Google are doing. 

 

I personally would prefer paper copies of everything anyway, because it just ends up clogging up my email account. 

 

Can you imagine, I actually had a threatening message that my email account will crash on the 14th of June, and how scared I was, its quite terrifying, because essentially everything I do business wise and personal wise goes through my email, so to lose it would be like losing a huge chunk of my life. As dramatic as that sounds its true. 

 

Could anyone on here cope with losing their primary email account? 

[DDIL]

//Could anyone on here cope with losing their primary email account?//

Yes

 

If you have agreed to Google terms and conditions for having their email address then you agree with all their actions. Didn't read the T&C's well that's on you then.
 

 

[barry1010]

If your emails weren't scanned your inbox would be full of spam, viruses and malware that damage your computer.  Possibly thousands every day

[Neveracrossword]

Quenched, do you not think you are perhaps over-reactting? At the start of your query, you said you'd had a 'warning' about the storage - and in your latest post, you've moved on to it being 'threatening' and saying how 'scared' you were, it was 'quite terrifying'. If I had business stuff going through via an email address, I'd ensure that I was properly set up where security and storage were concerned.

[Quenched]

Neveracrossword, 

Thats because randomly I had a message everytime I opened my gmail app saying after the 14th of June I will no longer be able to send or recieve emails unless I either purchase more storage or delete some photos or videos from my google photos app. 

At the stage I didn't even realise the two things were connected, so I stopped the sync to send photos or videos to Google photos, plus deleted some uneeded things. 

 

That said today actually this evening after opening gmail I'm still getting a warning I am 90% full and at risk of my gmail might stop working.

 

By the way who the heck reads all the terms and conditions when setting up an email? I'd be here until this time next year if I read all that.

 

And how do I back up important emails? And where?  Obviously the best thing would be to buy a printer and print everything off onto paper, but my God shouldn't we have this sent to us in the first place?  And they call this progression 🙄

[barry1010]

You can choose not to back up your photos and videos to your Google account 

[Quenched]

barry1010, 

I did that, and stopped the sync, but I tested the theory to see if it stopped new photos going to google photos, and they are still going there. 

And the warnings still appear each time I open my gmail. 

They keep insisting I buy more space or delete photos and videos, which I did delete quite a lot, but I dont know what else I can do. I obviously don't want to delete precious family photos. 

 

But then I don't want to lose access to my gmail account either. 

 

 

[barry1010]

Back all your photos up to your PC or external drive.

Then open Google Photos and delete