If you look at r/googlephotos on Reddit you’ll come across several posts from people who have had their accounts banned because of photos they have in their accounts. Most of the time it’s because of family photos of children. I have also seen posts from people who unwisely backed up their WhatsApp images folder, or backed up a drive without looking at what was on it first. Remember that researcher who lost their Google account because they had WWII Nazi documents in their Google Drive?

• Google Photos disabled my entire account for “CSAM” — long‑term account with family photos. Has anyone else had this happen?
• Google just banned my main account for uploading a 10-year-old backup and is accusing me of CSAM. (they got it back)
• Google permanently disabled my 6-year account over an alleged Child sexual abuse material (CSAM) violation — lost my income, banking access, and 6,000+ memories. What options do I have now? (they got it back)

I have photos there going back to the year 2000, but I never regarded Google Photos as a backup service. It was a fabulous photo-sharing site, but I have barely used it since 2024 and now have my own self-hosted Immich server instead.

Last week I did a Google Takeout of everything, just in case, as it will also download any photos I saved from shared albums.

Today I went to the large photos and videos page and deleted almost every item off that page.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a “delete everything from Google Photos” button. You’ll have to visit photos.google.com and select an image and then scroll down, and down and down… and then with shift pressed, click on the last image to delete. It then may take some time for Google to mark the images as deleted.

Honestly, I expect that the automatic CSAM detection they’re using has already scanned every single photo I’ve uploaded so I’m not worried about that. I’m not uploading anything else there either, but I’ve been meaning to move off Google Photos entirely for a long time.

It is really difficult to do. In my head I know that I have a Takeout backup of everything. I know that all the original photos are on my computer at home, and they’re on Immich now, but selecting photos of familiar smiling faces, of birthday parties, of holidays and festivals, and then clicking DELETE is hard.

They’re my photos. It was nice knowing you Google Photos.

If you want an alternative, self-host Immich or use Pixel Union, a hosted version of Immich where you get 16GB free before you have to pay for more storage. It’s also hosted in the EU, which is even better! I have an account there. I uploaded a few recent photos in this album for you to see what it looks like.

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Donncha Ó Caoimh is a software developer at Automattic and WordPress plugin developer. He posts photos at In Photos and can also be found on Mastodon. View more posts