Reports have revealed today that the American multinational technology photo sharing and storage service has removed the option to separate video backup over cellular from Google Photos.
Over the years, Google Photos has allowed users to control whether videos can automatically upload over cellular.
However, the American photo sharing and storage service recently conducted an Android update, and the video backup setting was secretly deleted and replaced with a “daily restriction” introduced in India.
Users may currently specify a “Daily limit for backup” that ranges from No data to 5MB, 10MB, 30MB, or Unlimited by going to Google Photos settings > “Back up & sync” > “Cell data usage,” with a separate toggle to enable “Back up while traveling.”
In a verification conducted today on the device, users in India and other Next Billion Users (NBU) countries were given “more granular daily controls for using cellular data to back up.” It’s now generally available on devices in the United States and Europe.
This multinational rollout is unusual for a number of reasons, and it could have happened by chance. The daily limit takes the place of the ability to choose whether or not films may be backed up over cellular, which the NBU version of Google Photos also lacks.
It is believed that many users don’t want large videos to upload over their data plan, but are fine with smaller image files being backed up right away.
Meanwhile, the Google Photos backup support page makes no mention of the daily limit feature, instead referring to the existing settings that allow users to choose whether or not to back up a video using cellular data:
Tap Videos under “Cellular data use” if you don’t want to wait for Wi-Fi to back up your videos. If you upload through your mobile network, your service provider may charge you.
In contrast, the iOS version of Google Photos in the United States still offers the old option to set or uncheck “Use cellular data to back up videos.”
While a daily limit may be advantageous for some users, the 5 to 30 MB increments are neither optimal nor practicable for all users.
Individual picture sizes frequently fall below the lower limit, however, most films exceed the upper limit.
Google Photos is a social network introduced in May 2015 for photo sharing and storage services.
