I’m deleting 100,000+ photos on Google Photos by hand. My method is to search for a month (say, March 2019) and then select all (select first photo, shift click last photo) and hit the Trash can. GP was my tertiary cloud backup anyway.

@cdevroe Are you deleting them to just get them out of Google? They won’t count against your storage after the switch to pay.

@mcg I already pay Google for storage. Have for many years. I save photo originals so they do count against my total. I’m deleting them because I plan on stopping my subscription to Google once I move all data and email off of their services. Multi-month plan.

@cdevroe Also on a track to drop Google services myself. Thought maybe I had missed something with the “free”Photos change. What service are you moving to for photos?

@de I’m leaving Google for a variety of reasons that I plan on find time to write about. Short version; I simply don’t trust them. They have very different priorities and guiding principles than I do. So I’d like to make an effort to own all of my data.

@mcg I have a rather convoluted library management workflow currently. I’d love to simplify it. But I’m storing my library (directories of images based on date taken) on an external drive, backing up to a second drive, and storing it also on OneDrive.

@gregmoore My gut says I’ll end up at Fastmail. But I can assure you I’ll end up writing about it.

@cdevroe I’d be interested to hear whether you choose to move to a new online photo management service. I’ve got a passing interest on getting off Google photos as well, but I do like the browsing and backup features they offer. Having a “Fastmail” equivalent to that, i.e. something that I pay for that will stick around for a while, would be nice.

@lmika Stay subscribed! I will say, though, that I’m leery of using any other cloud service besides a simple back up. I don’t like putting in tons of time into organizing only to leave the platform years later. It has happened to me over and over and over.

@cdevroe Yeah, that’s good advice. Thanks for that.