I stopped Google Photos from backing up everything with this app

Published Nov 1, 2026, 9:30 AM EST Victor is a Features Author at Android Police with several years' experience in writing about tech. His focus is on Android, apps, software and Google products. He's particularly interested in how smartphones and the software that runs on them impact our day-to-day lives. He likes to look at new features, find out how the apps work and then explain the technology in an accessible way. Outside writing, he enjoys playing FPS games, going for runs and catching up with his favourite series. I take lots of photos on my phone, but I don't want every single one to end up in Google Photos. Some pictures are worth keeping for years. Others are there only because I needed to remember something for a short period. My gallery is a mixture of family photos, screenshots, and photos I take to remember things I might forget. I want my important photos backed up, but I don't need all the others in my Google account. Google Photos lets me choose which device folders to back up, but it doesn't let me select individual pictures within them. I can't tell the app to save certain pictures while leaving the others behind. That's what caught my attention about Snapgate. When I take a photo, the app asks if I want to add it to my Google Photos library. I wanted more control over what Google Photos backed up Automatic and folder-based backup wasn't enough for me Google Photos makes automatic backups easy. Photos and videos upload automatically to your Google account, which saves time because you don't have to do anything after you take a picture. However, automatic backup tends to clutter my online photos, which can be annoying. Google Photos lets me manage backups for individual device folders. The issue is that I don't always want to back up everything that's in a folder. My camera folder is a good example. It contains some pictures I want to back up, but it also includes quick-reference pictures I don't need anywhere else. Turning off backup for the whole folder would mean I'd lose the important pictures as well. If I left it on, everything would be uploaded. I could manually pick the images I wanted to back up later. That would require me to remember which pictures were important and then go back to Google Photos to upload them. I wanted a way to make that decision as I took each picture, rather than going through the gallery afterward. Snapgate lets me decide which pictures reach the cloud I can review a picture in real time before uploading it Snapgate's approach to backing up my photos differs: it asks whether I'd like to back up the photo I just took. Instead of a bulk backup, you can review and choose which photos to back up next. After I take a photo, Snapgate sends a small notification with a thumbnail and buttons to back up or delete the photo. This way, I don't have to open Google Photos each time I want to decide if a new picture should go into my cloud library. It's a small change, but it makes me think differently about taking pictures. Taking a picture with my camera doesn't automatically add it to my Google Photos library. With Snapgate, I can choose not to upload an image and still keep it on my phone. This works for screenshots I need briefly or photos of products with details I want to remember. The main thing to remember is that choosing Discard does not delete the photo from my device. It means the photo won't be uploaded. That gives me a middle ground between uploading everything and turning off automatic backup for the whole folder. To make sure Snapgate works smoothly with your cloud library, turn off Google Photos' automatic backup for the folders you want to use. If you leave it on, every photo you take uploads right away in the background. This can make Snapgate's prompts unnecessary and might cause double uploads. To set it up, open Snapgate Settings, scroll to Set up Google Photos, and tap Open Google Photos. Snapgate offers more than an upload prompt Temporary modes changed how I handled backups I wouldn't want to approve every picture long-term if I could automate some of those decisions. Snapgate has temporary modes that alter upload behavior for a limited time. These modes can expire automatically, which is useful if you only want different backup settings for a particular moment. For example, if I was on a trip taking photos I wanted to keep, I'd switch to a more permissive mode rather than constantly deciding what to upload. After that temporary mode expires, I could go back to my normal routine. Snapgate has rules based on time, day, and source folder. It can also be configured to send approved pictures to a particular album. To set it up, I opened Snapgate, went to Settings > Context rules, selected the time, day, or source folder, and chose the album where approved pictures should go. These options reduce the number of decisions I have to make. I could set up a rule for a folder of images I generally don't want to upload, and then handle the others differently. I'd still need to check that the rules match how I use my phone. A rule that's too broad could prevent an important photo from backing up, which would defeat the point. I still have to decide which pictures deserve a backup Snapgate's approach isn't necessarily better for everybody. The value of automatic backup is that it doesn't require me to decide on every picture. If I'm taking lots of photos and want them all saved, the upload prompt can become a pain. You'd also have to make sure you weren't leaving important ones unbacked up. Snapgate has a 14-day trial, then a one-time purchase. Keep that in mind before you add it to your backup routine. Snapgate gives me control over what I back up I don't consider automatic backups a bad thing. They keep your important memories safe without you having to remember to upload each picture. But I don't think every photo I take has to go into my cloud library. Some are temporary references, and others are useful on my phone without needing to be on every device that's connected to my Google account. Snapgate helps make that distinction. The upload prompts let me decide what goes into Google Photos, and the temporary modes cut down on repetitive decisions.