5 Solutions to Google Photos Lost Photos Issue [Updated 2024]

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• Why Google Photos Lost Photos?
• 5 Solutions to Fix “Google Photos Lost Photos” Issue
• How to Protect Google Photos From Missing Pictures in Future?
• In the End

Why Google Photos Lost Photos?

Google Photos is a secure and professional service for people to store and share pictures. Based on the face, time, location and other certain features, Google Photos can clarify your images into different albums intelligently. However, users would find it frustrated and irritated when photos on Google Photos missing somehow.

As harsh as it is, missing images on Google Photos is a common problem that users would encounter when using Google Photos. Here are some causes that may lead to the "Google Photos lost photos" issue.

Losing precious photos may be cruel. If you want to recover the missing photos, you should read this article to learn these proven methods.

5 Solutions to “Google Photos Lost Photos” Issue

It is very common for users to encounter the "missing photos on Google Photos" issue. When it happens to you, don't worry, you can try the following effective methods to help you.

Solution 1: Check Your Account

You may have more than one Google account. And when you find your photos missing on Google Photos, you should first check your current account, because the account you are currently logged in to may not be the one you stored your pictures in.

Solution 2: Check Your Archive and Locked Folder

As mentioned before, the images you have moved into Archive will not be shown up on the main page of Google Photos; and the images on Locked Folder will not be displayed anywhere except the Locked Folder. So, if you find photos lost on Google Photos, you can first go to Archive and Locked Folder to see if they are there. Now, follow the steps below to check:

♦For Archive

Step 1: Visit the official website of Google Photos.
Step 2: Head to “Archive” on the left sidebar. Then you can view the photos you have move into and find out if the missing photos are there.

♦For Locked Folder

As said before, photos in the Locked Folder will not be shown up anywhere except the Locked Folder. That’s to say, once you migrate images to the Locked Folder, they will be deleted from your Photos cloud storage (though those photos will disappear from all your Photos-connected devices in 30 minutes).

So, you could check the Locked Folder to see whether lost photos on Google Photos are here or not.

Step 1: Go to Google Photos on your smartphone.
Step 2: Head to the Library bottom tab and select the Utilities section to choose Locked Folder. Then you could view and check the photos there.

Solution 3: Check Trash in Google Photos

Sometimes, people unintentionally delete photos on Google Photos. If you find your photos missing on Google Photos, you can go to Trash to see if there are images you want to find. If the missing photos are there, then congrats, Google Photos provides a special feature that you can restore deleted Google Photos in Trash within 60 days. Now, read further to learn the step-by-step operations.

Step 1: Go to Google Photos on your computer.
Step 2: Click "Trash" on the left sidebar. That’s where the deleted pictures will be displayed. If you do find the missing photo here, you can choose to restore by selecting the photos and click "Restore" on the right upper side.

Solution 4: Asking Google Support Team for Help

You can also contact the Google Support Team to help you solve the “Google Photos lost photos” issue. Now, you can follow the steps below to contact the Google Support Team:

Step 1: Head to Google Support.
Step 2: Scroll down to press the "Contact us" tab.

Step 3: You can choose "Chat" or "Email" to contact the Google Support Team. Then a support executive will get in touch with you to solve the issue.

Solution 5: Close Third-Party Extensions

Errors and unresponsive scripts in third-party extensions would sometimes cause bugs to Google Photos. With the bugs or viruses, photos may miss on Google Photos. So, you should turn off some third-party extensions that you don’t usually use.

Step 1: Go to Google Chrome and click the three-dots icon to choose More tools, and then tap the "Extensions" button.

Step 2: Switch off the third-party extensions.

Above are basic solutions to find the missing photos on Google Photos. In short, you can check your Google account, the Locked Folder and Archive as well as the Trash on Google Photos on PC or smartphone. In addition, you can also try to stop using certain third-party extensions and ask the Google Support Team for help.

How to Protect Google Photos From Missing Pictures in Future?

Google Photos is connected deeply with users’ studies and work. So, the  "losing pictures on Google Photos" , "Google Photos keeps crashing" and some other similar issues will always make it troublesome for users to access to their important images. 

If you ONLY save photos in Google Photos, you don’t have a backup! Then, you’re supposed to transfer photos from Google Photos to other clouds for data protection. In this way, even though Google Photos lost photos someday, you can still access them in other cloud drives.

So, how to back up photos on Google Photos to another cloud service? Traditionally, most would download images on Google Photos first, and then upload them to another cloud. If the size of the images is not large, that method is feasible. However, when it comes to large photos, it definitely will cost much time and energy.

In this case, you can use a third-party service – MultCloud to help you transfer photos easily. MultCloud is a useful cloud file manager that allows users to manage many cloud services like Google Drive, iCloud Photos, SharePoint, OneDrive, Dropbox, FTP, MEGA, etc. in just one platform. With MultCloud, you can avoid frequent account shifting and transfer files and data from one cloud to another effortlessly.

Now, you can refer to the basic operations below.

Step 1: Sign up MultCloud by email. Or, you could directly log in with your Google or Facebook account.

Step 2: Press on the “Add Cloud” button to add Google Photos. And then you should add the cloud service that you want to transfer to. Here, taking OneDrive as an example.

Step 3: Head to Cloud Transfer on the left sidebar, then choose Google Photos as the source directory and OneDrive as the target directory. Next, tap “Transfer Now”.

In addition to Cloud Transfer, you can sync images from Google Photos to another cloud drive by the Cloud Sync feature as well.

In the End

After reading this article, you now have learned the reasons and feasible methods to solve the "Google Photos lost photos" issue. Since restoring missing photos on Google Photos is a little difficult, please remember to transfer images to different cloud services to back up. And during transferring, MultCloud can help easily migrate and sync photos from Google Photos to another.