Deleting images in Google Photos, be it on your phone or computer, doesn't permanently remove them. They're siloed into the trash and remain there for 60 days, giving you plenty of time to reconsider your decision and restore them. However, since trashed images are ordered by the date they were taken in, you couldn't easily guess when their timer would expire. Now, Google is making the deletion date clearer for each image, so you know when exactly it'll be gone for good.

In Photos, click the menu button on the upper left, then select Trash. Every image there has a new countdown timer that will show up when you expand it, so you can see how many days are left until it's permanently deleted. That way you know how much time you have to make up your mind. If you're already certain about your decision, you can speed things up by deleting it immediately or restoring it to your photo roll.

This new interface is showing up for some of us on v4.51 of Google Photos, which is available on the Play Store and on APK Mirror. However, the change appears to be triggered server-side, so you may need to be patient before it rolls out to you.

Google Photos
Google Photos
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  • Thanks:
  • Gleb,
  • Eduardo Ribeiro

Image: Evgeny Karchevsky