Here’s how to make sure your photos and video aren’t getting put into the cloud automatically when using an Android phone or tablet
Not everyone realises their mobile devices are automatically uploading their photos and video to the cloud. A variety of female celebrities including Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton have had leaked naked photos posted on the internet after a rumoured cloud hack. The person who uploaded the photos to 4Chan said they were accessed through Apple’s iCloud Photostream service.
Android has an alternative service, Google Drive, which can automatically upload your photos from a phone or tablet. It means some users don’t even know their photos and videos are getting automatically uploaded to the cloud. Here’s how to stop it working on your Android phone or tablet.
Open The Photos App
On Android devices the app in question is Google's official "Photos" app. You can find it in your App Drawer, although these days phone-makers often put a handy Google App folder on the homescreen with all of The Big G's official stuff inside. Open Photos and you should then see a stream of all the images you’ve taken with your phone's camera.
Tap The Settings
Whilst inside the Photos app there should be an option for Settings. Tap it and then find the auto-backup section.
Untick Back Up
There’s an option called “Back Up Local Folders”, you want to press that and it’ll stop sending your photos directly to the cloud when taking new ones.
You can also head into the photos you’ve stored in the cloud to the delete them individually. From here you’ll be able to tick the ones you want to delete and then press the icon that looks like a bin.
Now your photos and videos will not be automatically saved to the cloud. Note that also means once you’ve deleted them off your phone, they’re gone forever.
If you’ve got an Apple device as well, it may be worth doing the same with iCloud. We’ve written a user guide to help you to turn off iCloud features on your iPhone, iPad or Mac.
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