Moved Photos Dissapearing.

[Jammer2omega]

Hello!

I have been looking for help with my Nexus 6P's Photos disappearing after I moved them to folders.

I collect video games as a hobby, and I tend to download pictures of games I collect or want to get. One day I got bored and decided to use Google Photos to make new folders and move certain pictures into these folders.

At first it seemed to work, and the folders appeared and the pictures were there. But after a day or two, It seemed the photos were gone.

I have tried a file viewer, and even hooking my phone up to the computer, and find my pictures are gone. The folders were still there, and one even has some of the cropped pictures I made with the app. But all the downloaded pictures are missing. ((maybe related to the recent updates? I am not sure))

Is there anything I can do to recover these pictures? or am I Simply SOL?
Any and all Advice welcomed!

 

[codesplice]

Hi @Jammer2omega, and welcome to Android Forums.

I wasn't able to figure out how to move pictures between folders within the Google Photos app. Are you perhaps talking about albums instead? If so, I believe the albums get uploaded to Google Photos on the web (https://photos.google.com).

The original pictures should still be where you downloaded them to - likely the Downloads folder on your phone - unless you perhaps ran a clean-up utility to free up space.

 

[Jammer2omega]

Thank you for your help Codesplice.

Forgive me if I use the wrong terms here... But in detail, this is what I did.

I opened up Google photos and tapped the three bars on the top left. Then selected 'Device Folders'. Then I went to the 'Download' folder. If you press and hold on any picture it will go into "select" mode. ((Conversely you can tap the three dots in the upper right and tap "select..."))

Then with my photos selected, check marks in the upper left, I tapped the upper right '...' again. The menu produces a "move to folder" option.

A new, full window, menu list of folders will appear. And I selected 'new folder'. I named it and put the pictures in there.

At first everything showed up. The folder, the photos, but now only the folder exists (and some cropped edits I made.)

 

[codesplice]

Thanks for clarifying - I stand corrected!

I had been trying to move photos from the main "Device Folders" view. Without descending into the folders themselves, the only options were "Delete device copy" and "Back up now". Once I drilled down to the folder level, I then had options to move/copy to other folders.

I moved some pictures around, and found that the new folder I created actually appeared at [Internal Memory]\Pictures\<folder_name>\. I was able to browse to this folder using a file explorer, and verified the pictures were contained within.

Can you try doing the same? If you don't have a file explorer application installed, I can recommend the free ASUS File Manager app.

Have you used any storage clean-up utilities by chance? You could also check to see if Photos was configured to automatically back up those folders to the cloud.

 

[Jammer2omega]

Yes, the folders show up in both the Asus file viewer, and on the computer. However, after a day or two, the pictures were gone. I reset the phone, a fee times to try and get them back. With no luck.

I still see the folders, but no pictures. I have not used any cleanup application. Are there any recovery applications I could use?

As for saving to the cloud, I am not sure. They would be located in the Google drive area, right?

 

[Jammer2omega]

I checked both of my Google drive accounts and I do not see any of the pictures I downloaded. Only a few pictures I took with the camera.

 

[hoppe]

Any update on this? I've had the problem twice now (with my Nexus 6P) and thought it may be related to .nomedia files - I move any files I want on my PC to a new folder and hide it using QuickPic (my preferred photo app) which creates a .nomedia file, then when I get around to it connect to my PC and transfer the files. Judging by people online it happens without .nomedia anyway.

First time I had moved a bunch of files, then tried to move a video I wanted to show someone and shortly after moving it tried to transfer it and the rest from my computer - most files were there, the video and some others were gone. Very frustrating, couldn't find it anywhere.

Earlier today I moved ~20 images to a .nomedia folder I made probably a week or so ago, then tried just now to transfer them to my PC by cable and windows explorer. All of today's images were gone, and I think some older ones are too but I'm not sure. I've tried searching all sorts of folders through windows explorer, and tried looking everywhere including the recycle bin on the phone itself. Extremely dissapointing, these were images I really didn't want to lose. I've never used Google backups because I prefer not having my files that vulnerable, but I don't think I have a choice anymore.