How to stop your photos being automatically uploaded to your TCD account

For more information on upcoming changes, you can access the TCD Alumni FAQ page here.

As your @tcd accounts will have Google Drive and Google Photos removed, you will need to remove data from these apps before the deadline communicated to you by the University, to avoid data loss.

Turning off automatic backup

Once you have transferred your photos to a personal account, we ask that you please delete them from your TCD account and remove them from your Bin. - This is the only way to reduce the storage used.

Once this has been done, you'll need to make sure automatic backup is switched off for your TCD account, so that any new photos you take are not backed up there going forward. If backup stays on, your storage usage will keep increasing and you risk losing the backups of any new photos.

Important note — multi-account users: If you have both your TCD account and a personal Gmail account signed in on the same phone, the Google Photos app will display all photos physically stored on your device's camera roll — regardless of which account is currently set to back up. Seeing a photo in the app does not mean it is backed up to both accounts. Google Photos only backs up to one account at a time, so you need to check each account's backup setting individually.

NOTE: This only applies to the Photos app on your Android phone/tablet or iPhone/iPad. Turning backup on or off can only be done from the mobile app — this setting is not available when using Google Photos on a computer/web browser.

You can turn this off by:

1. Open the Google Photos app
2. Make sure you're signed into your TCD account
3. Tap your profile picture in the top right of your screen 
4. Select the Photos settings option and then Backup
5. Here you can toggle the backup option to off
6. (Optional) Repeat steps 2–5, but this time sign in to your personal account. Turn Backup on here, if you want future photos backed up to that account instead.

Doing this for both accounts prevents accidental data loss: it stops new photos going into your TCD account, while making sure your personal account is actually capturing new backups going forward.

If you haven't already done so, once both settings are confirmed, you can proceed to transferring your existing photos from your TCD account to your personal account.

Support & Help

For support on anything covered in this guide see the Google Support information Here

OR 

Go to the the Trinity College Support Portal to search related articles, or raise a ticket with the support team.

Tickets can be raised on the portal on the four following categories only: Storage removal, Multi-Factor Authenticator configuration, Password resets or Changed/lost phone

*Qodea (formerly CTS) is the chosen Google Partner of Trinity College Dublin.