Google Photos can't free space when pictures are on SD card I'm using Google Photos and I love the automatic backup and free-space feature. Lately (from the day I got a SD card into the phone, which could be meaningful) I see google photos is backing them up but NOT freing space automatically.

I try to free space from the menu, it says "24 photos to be deleted" (but I got thousands of photos) and then it says an error occurred while deleting those 24.

You can find the screenshots here: https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNEwrDRm6gO0D0LrW9YgnI1RA_Ddz-3NvbuZzxTAPy2hLolpUd4MC_x-YwQEyua4A?key=Nlo4WkI0WmxhdWNhUFlEVXE5TGZ1cU9UVXVfZ2ZB

A friend suggested that probably since I got the SD the phone is saving the photos in the external memory. From there, Google Photos can backup them but can't delete them (don't know why).
I went into settings -> memory -> default memory, changed to "External memory" and rebooted the phone. Still Google Photos can't delete them, I get the same "24 photos to be deleted"/"can't delete them" message.

Did this ever happen to you? How did you manage to solve the issue?

Thank you
Marco
The SD card on Android is by default mounted in read-only mode: Google Photos can copy photos from the SD card to the server but it cannot edit, create or delete files on the SD card.

To allow Google Photos access read-write to the SD card, follow these steps:


Open Google Photos > Side navigation drawer > Device folders > Open a folder that is located on the SD card
Try deleting an image in that folder by long pressing on it and then pressing the bin icon in the toolbar.
A prompt titled "Give Google Photos access to your SD card?" - allow it.
A prompt with a message saying "Grant Photos access to your data, including photos and videos, on ?" - allow it.
The photo will be deleted.


This method was tested on my Samsung Galaxy Tab A.