After ending Samsung Gallery’s Microsoft OneDrive integration last month, Samsung has announced it is replacing it with Google Photos sync. The feature began rolling out to select Galaxy phones and tablets running One UI 9.0 a few weeks ago, and Samsung made the move official today.
Samsung Gallery now natively syncs photos and videos across supported Galaxy phones and tablets using Google Photos, without requiring a separate cloud account. To enable the feature, users need to sign into both their Samsung and Google accounts on each Galaxy device.
The rollout has started for select devices running One UI 9.0 and will expand to additional models in a phased manner, depending on regional availability and qualifying devices.
How Google Photos sync works in Samsung Gallery
Once photos and videos are backed up to Google Photos, a new “Free up space” option lets users remove original files from the device to reclaim internal storage. Samsung Gallery displays thumbnails while full-resolution files are downloaded to the device only when opened. This behavior uses the existing Google account storage allowance shared across Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Photos, and does not add extra space.
Synced photos and videos are accessible across devices: for example, images and clips captured on a Galaxy phone will automatically appear as previews in the Gallery app on a Galaxy tablet.
