Google Photos brings a ‘storage saver’ makeover to Android

The Google Photos app for Android appears to be bringing the web feature to mobile, as an option to convert stored photos to a lower “storage saver” format is in the works.

In 2021, Google Photos ended its unlimited photo storage policy, with all users getting 15GB of storage before having to pay. In addition, Google has added an option to convert a photo that is backed up at full size to a format that is easier to store.

Now that option seems to be coming to mobile.

In the latest update to Google Photos, Android Authority and PiunikaWeb noticed that a new “Storage Recovery” section is being added to the “Storage Management” section of Photos. The only option in that section is “Convert Photos to Save Storage”, which is copied directly from the web version of Google Photos.

Google briefly explains in the popup:

Free up some storage space by converting existing photos and videos, when possible, from original quality to space-saving quality.

It does not affect items stored or added elsewhere on Google, such as Gmail, Google Drive or YouTube.

Some items backed up on Pixel devices may not be affected.

This action cannot be undone, but it can potentially save a lot of storage space on your account.

This is not currently publicly available on Google Photos for Android, but the feature is said to work when manually enabled. So it’s likely that Google intends to release this relatively soon.