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Can I disable the Samsung photo gallery and make Google photos my default app for photos?

Sure. Go to settings>apps>gallery (or whatever the Samsung gallery is called) >open by default>clear defaults. The next time you open a photo it should prompt you which app to use as the default photo viewer.

OK. Say when I am trying to attach a photo in an email, text or facebook, will it then look for the Google photos or revert back to the Samsung gallery?
 
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OK. Say when I am trying to attach a photo in an email, text or facebook, will it then look for the Google photos or revert back to the Samsung gallery?

The phone SHOULD use which ever app you have set in settings as the DEFAULT app for the task.
 
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Other than being the first choice when attaching a photo, does it really make any difference?

The photos end up in both places anyways if you sync Google Photos.

It can. Samsung Gallery would show only local files and/or Samsung cloud sync'ed files. Photos would show local and those moved to the cloud to clean out your phone. It really depends on how a user manages accounts and photos. If you store stuff all over the place, then don't set a default and every time you are asked, use the "just once" option.
 
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OK. Say when I am trying to attach a photo in an email, text or facebook, will it then look for the Google photos or revert back to the Samsung gallery?
You might find it easier to approach the issue from a different standpoint. Photos on your Tab get stored in specific locations so it's not so much what app you use as your default photo library manager, it's where the photos themselves are stored. The app (Gallery or Photos) simply detects where they are so which one you use is essentially irrelevant when it comes to finding a photo to use as an attachment.
The default location for photos is the DCIM (Digital Camera IMages) folder, so by default if you take a picture with your camera it will automatically just be saved into that DCIM folder. But if you download a photo using a web browser it will probably save it into its own 'Downloads' folder. If you save a photo someone sent you via texting it might default to your DCIM folder or it might save it elsewhere (depends a lot on which texting app you use). But whatever the case, the photo manager app (Gallery or Google Photos) doesn't determine where photos get stored, it just detects them on your Tab and displays them.

Samsung includes a basic file manager app that you can use to manage files and things on your Tab. Look in your apps menu for the 'My Files' app. Start it up and look around for that DCIM folder, that's 'probably' where most of your photos are stored. If you set up your various apps to all use that DCIM folder as the default location for photos it might make things easier to have them all in one place. (..... and as far as the backup and sync function in Google Photos, if you're storing photos in a folder that it's not indexing, those photos aren't getting automatically backed up into your online Google account.)
 
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When there are no defaults set, I would guess Samsung's modifications to Android would prioritize their apps over Google. But, if you truly have no default photo manager set then if you open Google photos directly, the phone should prompt you to either use it always or just once. "Always" sets Google photos as default and will now be used when you try to attach images in email or messages.
 
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Just pulled out an old (SM T530NU android 5) Samsung, reset it, and had the same need...

The default settings are not accessible in this tablet, so, what I had to do was take a picture, then find it with a file manager, then set it to google photos and "always" I assume that will be necessary on all media files.

Hope this is helpful,
Beverly Howard
 
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