Google Photos is making a small but important change to how deleted photos are handled. The service is reducing the time backed-up photos and videos remain in the Trash from 60 days to 30 days before they are permanently deleted.
The change could be easy to miss, but it matters if you regularly delete photos and rely on Google Photos as a safety net for accidentally deleted content.
When you delete a backed-up photo or video in Google Photos, it is moved to the Trash instead of being removed immediately. Previously, those items could remain there for up to 60 days, which gives users plenty of time to restore something they deleted by mistake.
That window has now been cut in half.
As spotted by Android Authority, Google has been gradually updating its Google Photos app and support documentation to reflect the new 30-day limit. Google has also reportedly started showing in-app notifications to users about the change.
The change applies to backed-up photos and videos moved to Trash. If they are not restored within 30 days, Google Photos will permanently delete them.
Google appears to have started testing the shorter period around a month ago before updating its support documentation. The rollout is happening gradually, so some users may still see the old 60-day period or may not have received a notification yet.
For many users, this could offer a clear benefit. Deleted photos won’t sit in Trash indefinitely, which can help avoid unnecessarily retaining content that users have already decided to delete. But there is also a downside for many. The 60-day window gave users two months to realize that they had deleted something important. With the new 30-day limit, that safety net is much smaller. If you accidentally delete a photo and only notice it after more than a month, Google Photos will no longer be able to restore it from Trash.
This is important for people who regularly clean up large photo libraries. A photo deleted during a cleanup session might not seem important at the time, only to become useful weeks later.
Google has not explained what prompted the move from 60 days to 30 days. So, whatever the reason, if you delete something from Google Photos, don’t assume you have two months to change your mind anymore.
