Pics & Docs Storage

[James]

Don’t think I ever finished submitting! ‘No Replies found’ sounds kind of final! Do I resubmit or just wait!?

I’m not new but seldom use, so if Im in the wrong pew, tell me where to go! No, not there, just got back!!;))

[TeamKomando:Jarett]

Hi James!

Good questions, let’s break this down:

On the “missing photos” pop-ups: Those are almost certainly phishing or scareware, not real Google Cloud notifications. Google doesn’t push in-app or browser pop-ups saying photos are “missing” and asking you to verify anything. Real Google storage alerts only ever show up:

• Inside the Google Photos app itself (Settings > Backup)
• In Gmail, from an address ending in @google.com
• On your Google One dashboard (one.google.com/storage)

How to verify without giving up any info: Never click the pop-up itself. Instead, independently open a browser, go directly to one.google.com/storage or the Google Photos app, and check your usage there. If it doesn’t match what the pop-up claims, the pop-up is fake. At 0.35GB of 1TB, there is zero legitimate reason for Google to be flagging “missing” photos, that’s a huge red flag on its own.

On “so much Google stuff, minimal connection”: That’s a common feeling. Google Photos, Drive, Gmail, and Google One all share the same 1TB pool but live in separate apps, which makes it feel disconnected. You can see everything in one place at one.google.com/storage, it shows exactly what’s using space across all services.

On external drives at home: Not overkill at all. That’s the 3-2-1 backup rule in action (3 copies, 2 different media types, 1 offsite/cloud). Cloud storage can have outages, account lockouts, or billing issues, so having physical drive backups of your photos is smart, not paranoid. Docs being minimal there is totally fine since those are probably lower-risk/easier to recreate.

PS – No replies just means someone has not responded to a post yet, sometimes it takes people a little time to see a post and respond to it