Google Photos won't delete photos from device

[droidros]

I have a Motorola Moto Z and the default photo app is Photos. I am storing my photos and videos to the SD card by default. When I try to delete a picture, I get the following message:

Can't delete 1 item. Photos doesn't have access to delete items on your SD card. Go to the Gallery app to continue deleting. ​

Then there are buttons to cancel or launch Gallery. If I select Launch Gallary, it shows me some photo/media apps I have on the phone, but there is no app called Gallery (which I had on other phones), and none of them will delete the pictures.

I'm assuming it's because Photos doesn't have permission to access the SD card -- but I can't find where this permission is set.

Any advice?

 

[svim]

Try going into your Settings >> Apps >> Photos menu, tap on 'Permissions', and check if 'Storage' is enabled or not.

 

[droidros]

Try going into your Settings >> Apps >> Photos menu, tap on 'Permissions', and check if 'Storage' is enabled or not.

Thanks for your response. I went to settings and all the permissions are enabled. However, under Storage, it says "47.58 MB used in internal storage." It says nothing about SD storage.

I tried clearing everything and uninstalling (the updates) and restarted it. It went through backup and sync. Then it asked me if I want to grant it all the various permissions and I said yes. But I'm still getting the same message when I try to delete.

This is driving me crazy because I can't get rid of anything before it gets backed up on Google. Then I have copies of stuff I don't want.

I also tried to open the menu and select "delete device copy" but I get the same message.

 

[svim]

Don't know just why the Google Photos app isn't able to delete photos from your photo library but as a stopgap measure try installing this file manager app, Explorer, and use it to navigate to your DCIM folder (presuming that's the default save folder you opted for the Camera app to use) on your microSD card, use it to manually delete those photos you don't want to keep.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.speedsoftware.explorer&hl=en
This 'should' then be reflected in the Google Photos app when you start it up again as it re-indexes itself. But if not, using a web browser go to https://photos.google.com log into your account, and then delete those photos using the web interface.

 

[droidros]

Don't know just why the Google Photos app isn't able to delete photos from your photo library but as a stopgap measure try installing this file manager app, Explorer, and use it to navigate to your DCIM folder (presuming that's the default save folder you opted for the Camera app to use) on your microSD card, use it to manually delete those photos you don't want to keep.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.speedsoftware.explorer&hl=en
This 'should' then be reflected in the Google Photos app when you start it up again as it re-indexes itself. But if not, using a web browser go to https://photos.google.com log into your account, and then delete those photos using the web interface.

Thanks. I actually ended up doing that using the ES File Explorer app. It works but is slow.

I have another question about Google Photos. How do I know whether I'm looking at the picture on the device or the cloud version?

 

[svim]

I have another question about Google Photos. How do I know whether I'm looking at the picture on the device or the cloud version?

I would hope there's an easier way that someone else will reply on but the only two ways I know of are to use a file manager app to check the DCIM folder to confirm a photo is actually on my phone, or use the browser-based web interface as that's accessing my online photo library directly as is (if the photo is only online than it's a 'cloud' image in the Google Photos app not necessarily on my phone.)