Goodbye OneDrive, hello Google Photos: Samsung Gallery switches backup partner

Samsung is preparing to definitively close the integration of Microsoft OneDrive within its own Gallery application, marking the transition to a new native solution based on Google Photos.

The transition, whose implementation is planned to take place near the end of September, will allow Galaxy smartphone users to manage their multimedia content through a single system interface, uniting locally stored files with those archived in Google’s cloud.

Samsung abandons Microsoft and embraces Google for cloud backups

The discontinuation of OneDrive support had already been announced by the South Korean company earlier this year, but the looming deadline of 30 September makes the handover effective.

Until now, Samsung smartphone owners have been able to automatically sync photos and videos to Microsoft’s servers without the need for additional software or services.

With the conclusion of this partnership, the manufacturer is preparing an alternative that will rely directly on Google’s infrastructure.

The first signs of this change were spotted inside the Galaxy Store, where a new app named “Gallery Cloud Sync” appeared, specifically designed to replace the current backup system.

How will the new integration work?

Preview screenshots, surfaced online thanks to analyses by some users on social platforms, indicate that the system will manage saving to a space generically defined as the “Google cloud environment“, effectively referring to Google Photos.

The Gallery settings panel will show the data related to the storage space still available on the linked account, allowing you to select specific albums to sync.

There will also be network controls to enable file transfer only over Wi-Fi or while roaming.

This move aligns Samsung’s software with that of other mobile manufacturers, including Xiaomi, OPPO and OnePlus, which already offer an integrated view between local memory and Google’s platform within their respective preinstalled apps.

For Galaxy users, this means the ability to browse the entire photo library directly from the system app, avoiding having to switch between software to view less recent media.

This convergence will prove particularly useful during the setup of a new smartphone, as previously stored content will be visible from the very first boot.

Timelines and data management

Although the company has not yet published an announcement for the rollout of the new synchronization service, the distribution timing is closely tied to the decommissioning of OneDrive support.

It is likely that the new feature will be released from the end of this month or the beginning of October, potentially alongside the release of the new One UI 9 proprietary interface update.

Users with accounts containing thousands of media items will need to account for the processing time required to complete the initial data processing.

In any case, the system will maintain an optional approach: users who do not use Alphabet’s cloud services or who prefer to keep local contents separate from their remote library will have full freedom to disable direct connection via device settings.

Those who still rely on Microsoft servers via the Gallery app will need to get organized by the end of the month before the current saving method stops working.