Removing pics and video files from the phone and stopping it removing them from One Drive

[Mutton213]

Hi.
I have an S22 and the camera is linked to my One Drive. This means every time I take a picture or a video it's stored on the phone, but also uploads a copy to my One Drive.

In the past, I was able to hit delete on a picture or a video and it would remove it from the phone. This was done to free up space on the phone.  Now when I go to delete a picture from the phone, a message says, "This image is synced with OneDrive. Moving it to the Recycle bin will also remove it from all synced devices and move it to the Recycle bin in One Drive."  

This never used to happen, I was able to remove pictures from the phone and it would leave the files on One Drive. Nothing has changed on the One Drive.  Is there a way to stop it from removing the pictures from One Drive?

[RedDogRabbit]

One Drive Sync is not the same as Backup. Sync will remove both from One Drive & your device if you delete them from either. 

If you Backup your photos using One Drive, to One Drive, then you should be able to delete them from your device, and still have them backed up. (Convoluted answer, sorry). 🙂

Backups of your photos to Google Drive or Dropbox, should be unaffected by deleting photos from your device. 

 

 

[Mutton213]

It seemed to have changed from backup to sync then in an update. I have found a couple of workarounds. If I go into the phone via a file browser. I can take a picture and delete it from the phone. This will not cause that file to be deleted from One Drive, even after they all sync with each other. Obviously, this is a pain to have to do it this way when looking to clear up some space on the phone (compared to just hitting the delete button in the phones gallery like we could in the past). 

There is also an option I have found on the phone. Go into the One Drive app (on the phone), hit settings, hit Gallery Sync, hit Free up phone space.  This will give the give you the option to delete pictures and videos from your phone whilst keeping them on the One Drive. It doesn't give you the option to choose individual photos and videos however, it just wants to kill of everything. I personally don't like that as I would want to be able to choose what I want to keep on the phone so I can access it anytime without needing an internet connection to One Drive. 

I understand the changes they have made here but it's still a pain as it takes away the ability to take a picture, know it’s been uploaded to one drive for safe keeping, and then removing it from my phone in one easy motion. Example might be a picture of a gas/electric meter. I might want to keep it on the One Drive where I have massive storage space, but don't exactly want to keep it on the phone with limited storage space. 

It's not a massive issue but I still think it’s a bad change as it takes away the users’ options. There are workarounds but I prefer the old way.