Google Photos

What reviewers actually said

Built only from these 120 real reviews (foreign ones translated). Superscripts jump to the quote here. Apple has no per-review links, so [ref] opens that app's reviews on the App Store.

1. [R14] 5/5 · US Restrictions: Love the app but don’t like when you restrict my access when I reach my free limit Defeats the purpose of the app
2. [R29] 1/5 · US scam: its just a scam to use up data then make u buy more
3. [R72] 1/5 · US shady practice: This app keeps tricking me into enabling photo backup, forcing me to buy more space without understanding how I ran out in the first place. I just had to spend an hour undoing it manually because I’m worried the bulk undo option will erase photos I manually added to shared albums. You have lost my trust and I will be migrating to a different app.
4. [R97] 1/5 · US Won’t work unless you give Google access to all your photos: Do you want to add a few photos from vacation to a friend’s share Google photo album? Well, forget it, this app will not let you access and share a few photos, it wants every single photo on your phone. The app claims to allow “limited access” but you can punch that button all day, it won’t work. Then, once you allow “full access,” and h
5. [R132] 1/5 · US Took up all my Google storage, and I cannot unlink it from my Google account: I don’t even remember creating a Google Photos account and linking it to my iPhone camera roll, but somehow it has access to every single photo and video, and is taking up all my Google storage. I never use this app for anything, but there is no way to unlink it to free up more storage for my Google account (Gmail, drive
6. [R193] 1/5 · US Don't download if you have iCloud storage already: This app is a desperate attempt to force you to create an inventory of cloud space with them, which takes up all of your free storage from your other Google apps by "uploading" your pictures from your phone. And then you'll have to delete everything little by little
7. [R79] 3/5 · US Photos won’t delete: I have been a longtime Google Photos user. We’re talking years!!! In the past 6 months I have noticed when I press delete on photos, it doesn’t actually delete. I will have to delete the same photo 3x sometimes Prior to it actually deleting and stop taking up my storage quota. Also, now that it’s not free, there’s little difference between paying here and paying for extra iClo
8. [R808] 3/5 · AU Getting worse over time: Can’t sync some files, face detection failing, slow to load, not sure if issue with last three iOS versions. Pricing is getting worse as well. I guess home servers are back in fashion now that better family photo sharing is better
9. [R43] 1/5 · US UI Not User Friendly: Easy to use if you simply want to store your images. Not so great, but actually awful if you find yourself needing to mass delete photos. You are inundated with options to buy more storage but nowhere can you find a way to delete photos en masse. Yep. You are constantly offered the option to upgrade your storage. I mean, constantly. They claim it’s because they don’t want you
10. [R166] 1/5 · US Stolen photos - unable to delete: I downloaded Google Photos to upload photos to a friend’s wedding album. I did not turn on backups from my device and it stole every photo from my iPhone library and had the GALL to request money for “too much storage” without giving me the option to delete all the photos. It would take me hours to do this manually, and thus cannot access my Google budget without
11. [R4] 5/5 · US Photo ops: I get to see memories that I used to have! I had a stroke about 10 months ago, and I have no memories…anymore.
12. [R6] 5/5 · US Recuerdos: Bellas fotos
13. [R8] 5/5 · US Love it: I love being reminded of my past
14. [R12] 5/5 · US Great app: Love the collages and memories they put together for me
15. [R9] 5/5 · US Safety Matters!: I feel so much better knowing that my photos and videos are safe. I was always scared with the iCloud.
16. [R11] 5/5 · US Cheep cheep CHEAP!: 200GB for around $29.99/yr (not sure if this has “The Apple Tax) with Google One! After smashing my phone in a car door on a vacation and realizing nothing was backed up, I took the leap and purchased some space from Google to backup all my photos and videos, plus anything I put into Drive. Switching to an iPhone allows me to continue that without being tied down to iCloud! Tha
17. [R104] 3/5 · US Good at one thing. And only that.: I’ve been using Google Photos for years. At its core, it’s great. It backs up my photos without my having to do anything. But that’s on one account. I have multiple Google accounts that I use regularly. The Google Photos app is only useful with the account I back up to. And here’s why. I can’t filter between backed up and non-backed up photos. The Google Photos
18. [R21] 5/5 · US Presents your photos beautifully: Improves their color, makes them sharper and dramatic. Analyzes them and finds the best ones. Creates very nice albums that really seem intelligently based upon your likes.
19. [R46] 5/5 · US Easiest: To navigating your photos, this is the best app, no matter what type of phone you have or computer. And the little surprise of a collage or collaboration of photos that pops up every now and again to bring back. Good memories is kind of cool. The ease of connectivity to other apps is a major plus as well.
20. [R3] 1/5 · US Deleted all of my important photos: Accidentally synced with Google photos and filled up my storage, can’t uncouple it from my iOS photos and it’s deleted probably over 10k things when I just wanted them removed from Google photos
21. [R7] 2/5 · US What’s the point?: This is not a photo storage app. Do not use this app if you want to store your photos somewhere and delete from your device. Once you delete it from your device, it’ll delete from Google Photos when you sync. What’s the point if I can’t delete them from my device…? I hope this helps someone save their photos from being deleted. I gave it 2 stars because if you truly want to ju
22. [R93] 2/5 · US Deletes photos from your device.: Update to review: I got a response from the developer with links about my issues and how to resolve it, and typical of developers they did not read my review. They skimmed it to look for key words or used an AI to "read" it. The link they gave me was what I suggested in my review to new users. I had already read through their help section and it is the same as th
23. [R17] 1/5 · US Deleted all pictures from my iPhone: This app kept popping up a message that I must share all photos from my iPhone in order to edit or do anything really. I didn’t want to do that, I tried only allowing limited access but that didn’t work so I gave in and shared all photos. Afterwards it still wouldn’t let me edit my pictures with a new message that I needed to download a different thing for that
24. [R10] 1/5 · US Locked me out of my photos: I don’t want Google Photos to have access to my iPhone camera roll, I only have this app for my old pictures from when I had a Samsung. Now it won’t let me access my photos without giving it permission to back up my iPhones camera roll. I don’t want to do that, I don’t have enough storage on my google account for that and I just plain don’t want to give it access. I jus
25. [R47] 1/5 · US Too hard: Way too difficult to figure out. It seems like it will back up every single photo in your phone or nothing at all. I wanted to backup only specific photos, not every one. But it’s all or nothing. Junk
26. [R56] 1/5 · US Busted: Cannot access my Google Photos without allowing it access to my camera roll?? That is new and stupid.
27. [R13] 3/5 · US Photo to video: Doesn't work photo to video keep saying the photo too small choose different one, when chosen large jotted frame but still say too small
28. [R19] 3/5 · US Editing images needs work: I got alerted to view a memory and I went to edit it and that experience needs work. Images wouldn’t update
29. [R50] 2/5 · US black screen when i open the app: google photos used to work great on my ipad but for the past couple of months when i open the app its a blank screen. still shows the UI and i can navigate to "collections" and "create" and other stuff but my photos wont load no matter what button i press. my ipad is up to date and so is the google photos app but the problem still persists
30. [R103] 1/5 · US Slow, won’t upload or download videos: It always fails to download or upload videos or live pictures. Worked so well then suddenly about a week ago the app is basically useless. Trying to move my archives over and now I’m regretting wasting so much time.
31. [R25] 3/5 · US UI Truncation / Setup Buttons Cut Off on iPhone SE: Title: UI Truncation / Setup Buttons Cut Off on iPhone SE (4.7-inch display) App Version: Latest iOS Release Device: iPhone SE (3rd Gen / 2nd Gen) Description: A critical layout bug prevents iPhone SE users from using the app. Upon launch, the "Ask Photos vs. Classic Search" onboarding prompt appears. Because of the small 4.7-inch screen size,
32. [R111] 1/5 · US Update: Since the last update, photos are not showing by day and date. Need to click on them to see date. Please bring that feature back
33. [R120] 3/5 · US Bring back MONTHLY VIEW!!: May 1, 2026: I WANT OFF THIS ISLAND!! These updates are seriously getting worse with EVERY update since changing and removing the monthly layout! July 4th: The updates are steady getting worse! Google Photos literally stopped working for me on July 3rd. It started freezing and not opening all the way. Multiple phone reboots did nothing. I hesitated but gave in and upda
34. [R163] 3/5 · US photo grid update: Myself and so many other users of google photos who I know, HATE, the new main photo grid. There is no need to have Recent moments, cinematics (which i turned off but still get), videos, and people and pets show up. there is literally a separate tab for that i can go to i don’t need it getting in the way of trying to find what i’m actually looking for in my photos. it’s large an