OnePlus Gallery found to conflict with Google Photos gobbling-up onboard storage

Most smartphones come with a built-in gallery or photos app for viewing and editing photos, but a large number of users stick to the familiar Google Photos app for managing their photos and online backups. Similarly, OnePlus smartphones also come with a built-in OnePlus Gallery app. However, if you are primarily a Google Photos user and have been observing the storage space in your OnePlus device tanking, the default Gallery app could be the one to blame. 

User u/100_points on Reddit observed this behavior on a OnePlus 5T device. Using the "Free up space" feature in the Google Photos app normally removes all photos from the device after backing them up to the cloud. On the other hand, the OnePlus Gallery app also offers a way of storing deleted photos in a "recycle bin" of sorts. Recently, OnePlus has also enabled cloud sync for the Gallery app.

However, the OP observed that removing photos via Google Photos does not delete them from the device. Instead, the OnePlus Gallery app actually stores these deleted photos in the recycle bin. Overtime, this can gobble-up space, which can be problematic for phones that come with less onboard storage without any option for memory expansion. 

Now, those who are familiar with how the OnePlus Gallery works know that the app clears its recycle bin automatically once every 30 days. The process can be done manually as well when needed. But for those not in the know, the loss of precious onboard storage can be a cause for concern. If you are totally into Google Photos, you can disable the OnePlus Gallery app till an update is made available. However, this comes with the catch of not being able to quick-edit screenshots after capture. 

The OnePlus Gallery app is a pretty feature-rich app in its own right and users would definitely prefer to have it installed. We hope that OnePlus fixes the app's behavior so that it can better co-exist alongside Google Photos. 

Have you noticed your OnePlus phone's onboard storage shrinking? Let us know in the comments below.