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Google Photos just halved the time you have to rescue trashed pictures

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Why This Matters

Google Photos is cutting the trash retention window for backed-up photos from 60 days to 30, aligning cloud deletions with local ones. It's a small but real reduction in a safety net millions rely on, and it lands as a service downgrade rather than a feature, with in-app notifications now rolling out to Android users.

Key Takeaways
Worth a Look

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Joe Maring / Android Authority

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TL;DR Last month we spotted Google Photos preparing to implement a new 30-day retention limit on deleted pics.

A few days ago, Google updated its Photos support docs to reference the new 30-day policy.

Now Android users are also starting to get notifications within the app.

How much effort do you put into to curating your photographs? When you’ve got a giant bucket of Google One storage to fill up, some users will just save every snapshot they ever take. Even when you have all the space in the world, there’s a lot to be said for weeding out the pics you definitely don’t want. But what if you end up second-guessing yourself? Maybe that questionable pic is worth keeping, after all? Hopefully you make up your mind soon, because Google Photos is slashing your restore window in half for trashed pics.

So far, if you’ve backed up an image with Google Photos, then moved that pic to the trash, you’d get a 60-day grace period before it was deleted for good. For pics that are just stored locally on a device, you’ve only had 30 days.

Last month we spotted Google working to change that, with an update previewing the company’s intent to shorten the window on clearing trash in the cloud from 60 days to 30 days.

Google has now begun informing users of the shortening grace period. The company already updated its Photos support docs earlier this month to reflect the new 30-day limit, and now we’re seeing users begin to be notified of the change within the Photos app:

Ryan McNeal / Android Authority

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