Google Photos

[weese237]

Hello,

I used Google Photos to show my photography with my friends. I used the share function. I stopped using it because of two things. I found out that my friends shared the link with their friends and friends that I did not know and so on. I really don't want my work stolen. And second, some friends thought that the photos were on their phones so they started deleting my photos and didn't realize they were deleting them from Google. They didn't know how it worked. So I removed them all.

I only know a little bit about Google Photos myself so what should I have done to prevent the deleting of my photos? Should I have used something else that was this easy and free? I really don't know much about this topic as I just started with photography and obviously my friends don't either. It just seemed very easy to use Google photos to share. I currently am attaching a few photos to emails or text. That's very cumbersome.

Any suggestions?
Thank you

[ChrisGreaves]

It just seemed very easy to use Google photos to share. I currently am attaching a few photos to emails or text. That's very cumbersome.

I have not used Google Photos, so I can speak from years of IN-Experience.

In the first place, if something makes it easy to share (stuff), then that (stuff) is going to be easy to share.
There may well be a way to share photos on Google Photos without letting others delete the photos (there are experts here at Eileen's Lounge)

But mainly, think about this: Suppose I store a photo (or audio track or text document or ...) on a page on my own website, and do NOT link that page into my home page; so there is no way that the web-bots can find that page.
I then Private Message you, offering a link to that Secret web page.
You can see the image/track/document, yes?
And then you can share that image/track/text with whomever you want to, right?

So an image on a private web page on a private web site, sent via a Private Message on a secure phpBB forum is available to about 9,000,000,000 humans on planet Earth, isn't it?

Cheers, Chris

[RonH]

I'm a casual user of Google Drive, on occasion uploading some images and nominating who can view only/view and download. Then after a short period, I delete these folders/images from my 'cloud' drive.

I'm unsure of how secure the view only really is ...

[stuck]

...Any suggestions?...

You can create a free Flickr account (taking care to ignore all the trips and traps they'll put in your way to get you to sign up for a subscription account) and use the sharing features of that. NB the free account only let's you upload a max on 1000 images but for casual sharing that's probably more than enough.

I've never used Google Photos but I'm surprised that people viewing your images can also delete them. Have you checked the permissions on the images you share? I'd expect there being a way to ensure others are restricted to just viewing images, and not also be able to delete them. As far as I know, people viewing stuff shared from Flickr are limited to just viewing. Unless you were to share your login details of course

Hope this helps.

Ken

[HansV]

When I create an album in Google Photos and share it, others can only view it as far as I can tell.
Here is a link to an album with only one photo. Can anyone delete it? (Don't worry, I have backups!)

Test Album

[StuartR]

I can't delete it

[HansV]

Thanks, Stuart! That's what I expected.

[ChrisGreaves]

... others are restricted to just viewing images, and not also be able to delete them. ...

Not to mention being able to right-click and then "Save image to disk".
Of course, we almost always have access to the PrtScr key if we want a copy ...
Cheers, Chris

[HansV]

I didn't do anything special - I simply created the album and clicked on the Share icon:

S2585.png

Next, I clicked on Copy link:

S2586.png

This gave me the link that I posted:

S2587.png

[Rebel]

I couldn't find any way to delete that photo.

[HansV]

Thanks, Rebel.

[weese237]

Hi Hans,

I couldn't delete it either! Wonderful! I'm so relieved. I'll do what you did and it should work for me as well. (Unless I miss something. )
I thought that is what I did before but I obviously messed up. Thank you so much! Nice picture by the way!

Just thought of something. What if some of my people don't have a Google account, can they still have access? I just realized that I had to login before I could look at your photo. Now that I'm thinking about it, I think that the folks with accounts couldn't delete but the others could? I may be remembering wrong.

[HansV]

You should be able to view the album without logging in. I tested in a private window where I wasn't logged in to my Google account.

S2588.png

[weese237]

Ok Great!
I signed out of Google and then clicked on your link again and it looks like it kept me in memory. I was still there. When I first tried it, I had to enter a Google account. Maybe I couldn't get beyond that without putting one in. Never thought of trying that. Oh well, I'm sure your way will be good. Thanks again.

[stuck]

I too am relived to read that Google Photos behaves as I thought it should, i.e. sharing allows viewing but not 'managing' (e.g. deleting) an image. In which case, you don't need a free Flicker account.

Ken

[weese237]

Thanks Ken, Will have to check the permissions when I do this again!

[HansV]

Nice picture by the way!

Thanks!

[weese237]

Ok, When I get a chance tomorrow, I'll also do a test Google shared album. Let's see if I did it correctly and lets first try not logging in to see if we can delete anything that way. Keeping my fingers crossed.

[weese237]

Good Morning!
I did a new "test" album and put a photo in it. I did not do any "invitations". Try not logging into Google first before trying to delete it.

Thanks!
https://photos.app.goo.gl/nCDYPuADUvUQStEf9

[HansV]

Beautiful picture! I can download it, share it, and get info about it, but not delete it, nor edit it.