Google Photos Vs. Gallery App: What’s the Difference and Which Should You Use?

Did you know that Google has another simpler app for images called Gallery? We’re not talking about preloaded apps created by Android brands like Samsung Gallery, but an app that Google developed itself. This is a simplified alternative that you can use if you don’t really like most of the features of Google Photos and just want something that will allow you to organize your images.

If you’re wondering which one to use between the two, well… you don’t really have to choose. You may need to download the Gallery app from Google Play, but you can have both on your phone and just use one or the other whenever you want.

One of the biggest differences between the two apps is that Photos can automatically back up your images to the cloud, while Gallery can’t. You can enable autosave in Photos by tapping your avatar in the upper right corner of the screen, then Backup, where you can enable the option.

You can also see how much cloud storage space you can free up on your profile. Old personal Google accounts have 15 GB of free storage, but new accounts created on or after March 9, 2026 only have 5 GB by default, with the option to unlock 10 GB more by verifying a valid phone number. Your storage is shared across the Google services you use, including Gmail, Drive, WhatsApp, and, yes, Photos. To expand your storage, you’ll need to pay for a Google One subscription, which will cost you $2 per month for 100 GB of storage or $3 for 200 GB.

Buying additional storage is probably the quickest way to ensure you don’t run out of space on your phone. You will also see the option Free up space on this device when you tap your profile picture in the Photos app. This will remove items from your device that are already safely backed up to the cloud with the quality of your choice. An important thing to keep in mind is that if you manually move images to trash in both photos And Gallery, they will also be permanently deleted from your cloud backup and all devices where the app is installed after 30 days.

If you don’t mind regularly and manually backing up your device, as well as deleting images from your phone, you can simply use the Gallery app. You can purchase an external storage drive that plugs into your phone’s USB-C port to save your photos instead of relying on cloud backup.

Since Gallery is a simpler app, it also has minimal editing tools. It features rotation, cropping, and a handful of filters that you can apply to your images. Meanwhile, Google Photos has access to a wider range of editing tools, including AI improvements. You can adjust the brightness, contrast, tone, highlights, and shadows of an image in Photos. You can add blur effects, sharpen and even move certain elements to other parts of the image. You can also scribble on the image, add text and highlights, and use a one-click tool that automatically smoothes skin texture, whitens teens, and reduces shadows under the eyes.

If you regularly edit your images, Photos may be the best app for you unless you already have a reliable editing app. The gallery is sufficient if you just want to crop your photos from time to time. You can share images on social media or send them via email or messaging app via Google Photos and Gallery anyway, so this doesn’t have to factor into your choice.