I deleted a bunch of blurry vacation photos from my Google Photos library last month, but they keep reappearing in my backup. I'm using the free tier and have auto-sync enabled on my phone. Is this a known bug or am I doing something wrong?
The issue is probably that you're deleting them from Google Photos but they're still on your phone's local storage. When auto-sync is on, Google Photos scans your device and re-uploads anything it finds that matches the backup criteria. So those blurry vacation pics are sitting in your phone's Photos app or camera roll, and the sync keeps finding them and putting them back in the cloud.
Check your phone's local gallery or camera roll and actually delete them from there, not just from Google Photos. On Android, open your gallery app and make sure those photos are gone from the source. On iPhone, check your Photos app and permanently delete them (swipe to trash, then empty trash). Once they're off your device, the sync won't have anything to re-upload. Also double-check that you're not syncing from an old backup folder or a cloud sync like OneDrive or Dropbox that's mirroring your photos back to your phone - that can cause the same problem.
If you've already deleted them everywhere and they're still coming back, try turning off auto-sync, clearing the Google Photos app cache, then turning it back on. But honestly, nine times out of ten it's just the local copies still being there.
That's not quite a Google Photos bug - what's happening is your phone's still holding onto those photos locally, and since auto-sync is enabled, Google Photos keeps finding them and uploading them back! The real trap nobody mentions is that even if you delete them from your phone's camera roll, they might still be lurking in a "Recently Deleted" folder or a backup folder created by your phone's OS, so you need to hunt those down and permanently wipe them from there too before the syncing stops.
the folks above have the right idea but it's slightly more nuanced - deleting from google photos doesn't automatically remove them from your device's camera roll or gallery app. when auto-sync scans your phone it finds the original files still sitting there and re-uploads them. you need to delete them from your phone's actual gallery/photos app, not just from the google photos interface, to stop the cycle. it's not a bug, just how the syncing works - it's designed to be pretty aggressive about backing everything up so you dont lose anything.
Did you delete them from Google Photos itself, or from your phone's camera roll?
So here's the thing - the other answers are on the right track, but they're missing a key distinction. When you delete a photo in the Google Photos app, it only removes it from your Google Photos library. Your phone's actual camera roll or gallery app still has the original file sitting there. Auto-sync doesn't care what you deleted in Google Photos; it just scans your device storage and says "hey, this photo exists on the phone, better sync it." So it re-uploads everything it finds, even stuff you thought you got rid of.
The fix is to delete from your phone's native storage too - not just from Google Photos. Go into your phone's default gallery or camera app and delete them there. Once they're gone from the device itself, auto-sync won't find them anymore and you're actually done. You might also want to check if there's a folder like "Recently Deleted" or a trash bin in either app that's still holding onto these photos; some phones keep deleted items there for 30 days or so before permanently removing them.
If you want to be extra safe going forward, you could temporarily turn off auto-sync while you're cleaning house, delete everything you want gone from both places, then turn sync back on. That way there's no confusion about what's syncing where.
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