Google Photos is a versatile app that offers multiple options for backing up your images and videos. However, if you’re someone who captures a lot of media on your phone, the backup intervals can be unpredictable. As you would expect, Google Photos backups also tend to drain the smartphone’s battery, especially when there’s no scheduling option available in the app.
Thankfully, Google Photos appears to understand this concern and is developing a new toggle to “Optimize backup for battery life.” The folks at Android Authority discovered this toggle in version 7.59 of the Photos app, giving us an early glimpse of its placement within Backup settings.
When this toggle is enabled, “your device may back up less often when you’re not using the app,” as the accompanying description states. This indicates that backups may be enabled only when you open the app, potentially ceasing or minimizing all background uploads.
A system like this would create some challenges, such as the inability to find some of your recently captured photos or videos across all devices. But that’s a small price to pay for preserving your phone’s battery.
Ideally, users should have an option to back up media only when plugged into the charger, an option that previously existed in Photos but was removed in 2017. But this upcoming addition should be a decent, if not the best, alternative.
Photos already lets you run backups exclusively over Wi-Fi and limit or completely restrict mobile data usage for uploads. But regardless of the network you’re on, the battery consumption will be significant while backing up high-quality videos and photos to the cloud. Keeping this in mind, limiting when the backups occur makes a great deal of sense.
More Google Photos changes are incoming
The Backup page with M3 Expressive and the Backup schedule option
Separately, an Android Authority report last week uncovered a new option called “Backup schedule” within the Backup page. Unfortunately, no additional details were available on how this feature would work and the number of options it would provide.
Nevertheless, the fact that it’s under development suggests that Google Photos is (finally) taking the media backup experience more seriously. The same report also revealed work on a Material 3 Expressive redesign of the Backup page in Google Photos, offering a fresh new look for the existing layout.
Since some of these features haven’t been confirmed by Google Photos just yet, there’s no word on when they will be available to the wider public. We hope the wait won’t be too long, given how useful additional backup options will be for frequent users of the service.
