Android: Disable Syncing of Picasa Web Albums to Gallery App
Posted by Jimmy Selix in Android
The Android operating system integrates really well with all of Google’s services including Gmail, Drive and even Picasa. By default, Google will sync your Picasa Web Albums to your Android device’s Gallery app. By stopping this process, you will have a more organized and orderly Gallery app.
The Gallery app on Android lets you view all photos and videos on your device. Additionally, it will also sync your photos from popular social media networks including Picasa web albums, Facebook photos and Dropbox. If you prefer only seeing the photos and videos actually on your phone in the Gallery app, we will need to disable the sync process and clear this data so the Gallery app removes the previously synced photos.
This tutorial assumes you have already setup your Google account on your Android device. These steps should work on all versions of Android; however, the menu icons may differ in appearance. In my example below, the device used is a Galaxy Note 2 with Jellybean 4.1.2.
1. Go to Settings > Accounts
2. Select your Google account, then tap on your Google account name to change your sync settings.
3. Scroll down to the bottom and uncheck the Sync Picasa Web albums option.
4. Go back into Settings > Application Manager or Apps or Applications. This will depend on your Android configuration and version.
5. Go to Applications > All
6. Scroll down and find Gallery and select it.
7. Tap on both the Clear Data and Clear Cache options. This will reset the cache and also clear the previously synced Picasa web albums from the Gallery app.
8. Go back to your Gallery app. You will notice that just your local photos and videos are listed.
9. If you Dropbox or Facebook media appears in the Gallery application, you can also do the same thing with your Facebook or Dropbox accounts. Go into your Facebook/Dropbox account in Settings > Accounts and then uncheck the appropriate sync photos options. Once you do that, you will again need to clear the cache and data on the Gallery app via steps 4-7 again.
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March 25, 2013 at 6:20 pm, Hud said:
I have been all over the internet to get rid of the Picasa photos on my phone. These are the best directions I have read and it works. Thanks so much I thought I would go crazy.
March 26, 2013 at 12:17 pm, Candy said:
Thank you! It worked wonderfully and to imagine I’d been ready to pull out my hair in frustration before! lol
March 30, 2013 at 6:37 am, Gabe said:
Having a handful of albums added to my gallery every day was getting beyond frustrating. Best directions out there, thank you!
March 31, 2013 at 3:33 am, Gabor Cs, said:
Thanks very much!
April 05, 2013 at 4:11 am, Zhuang Mingren said:
Thanks very much!
April 06, 2013 at 6:51 am, nalin said:
> Thanks very much!
April 13, 2013 at 2:48 pm, TD said:
Thank you very much for these clear and concise instructions! I am really glad that I found your site. This was driving me batty!
April 13, 2013 at 2:58 pm, Krissy B. said:
Thank u for sharing these steps. They work great, however, the picasa albums come back. Sometimes immediately, sometimes after a little while. Its really driving me crazy, and these albums are taking up most of my phone’s memory! I have made sure that all my social sites and dropbox have been un-synced, but they just keep coming back. Any idea on how to fix them from coming back for good? I must be doing something wrong. I havea Samsung Galaxy III with the update from ICS to first version of Jelly Bean. Thank u in advance!
April 20, 2013 at 8:38 am, Stan said:
I tried this an dit didn’t work. When I went into settings, account and selected Google it didn’t have the option to uncheck Sync Picasa Web albums….all it had was a button at the bottom of the screen that said “Sync All” and when I clicked on that it states “cancel sync” but when I go to the next screen it resets it to sync all. God love Google that they can not make thinks simple.
May 20, 2013 at 7:35 pm, victor said:
Will all the other photos be deleted?
June 05, 2013 at 10:45 am, Carney said:
I’m considering going from iOs to Android, and what I hoping is that Android’s default photo app will upload its content to my Picasa account, hopefully a non-public one, where I can at my leisure delete it, edit it, or move it to a public one. Is this the case?
In other words, this article talks about how Android pulls photos down from Picasa to your phone’s photos app. I understand how that could be annoying given limited storage space. What I want is for the opposite to happen – for the phone to push its photos to Picasa and then let me delete them from the phone.
June 17, 2013 at 2:56 am, Len said:
OUTSTANDING!!!! Thankyou!
June 18, 2013 at 11:15 am, Freetime said:
Picasa Web Albums in the Galley will suck down your data plan as background data and appear under Google+