Piktures, a free Android gallery app, shows in your Google Drive only the photos and videos it uploaded itself: the ones you copied, moved or backed up from the phone with Piktures. Photos already on your Drive, or added from other apps or from the Google Drive website, don't appear in Piktures.
Can an Android gallery app show my Google Drive photos?
In Piktures, only the ones it uploaded. When you connect Google Drive, Piktures has access to the files uploaded by Piktures, and to nothing else on your Drive. That is the limit to know before you add it.
What this makes Google Drive good for, with Piktures:
- A place to send photos from the phone. Copy or move photos to your Drive from Piktures, and they appear in Piktures as Drive albums, next to the phone's.
- A backup destination, with Premium or Prime: Piktures backs up your phone albums to a folder of your Drive, automatically, and can restore them to the phone.
- A bridge between clouds. Photos on your Drive can be copied to OneDrive, Dropbox, or any other access you have added, and the other way round.
Your Google Drive appears in the Storage tab, under CLOUD. Tap it, and the folders Piktures uploaded to show up as albums in the Albums tab, with every sort order the phone's albums have. Piktures is not associated with Google.
How do I add Google Drive to Piktures?
- In the Storage tab, scroll down to ADD A NEW ACCESS and tap Google Drive.
- Tap GO TO GOOGLE DRIVE.
- Choose your Google account and allow Piktures.
Each Google account can be added once. Your first access is free, whether it is Google Drive, another cloud, or a network drive; a second access needs Premium or Prime. The details are in Google Drive and How to add a cloud.
How do I put photos on Google Drive from Piktures?
- Copy or move. Select the photos in a phone album, tap the move icon, tap Current drive, choose Google Drive under CLOUD, open a folder, and tap Move here or Copy here. Piktures uploads the photos; after a move, it sends the phone's copies to Deleted items, where you can still restore them. See Copy and move between drives.
- Back up, with Premium or Prime. In the Albums tab, ⋮ → Backup → ADD A NEW BACKUP, choose Google Drive and a folder, then turn on the switch of each album. Piktures creates a
Pikturesfolder there, sends each album once in full and then only the new photos, and never deletes anything on the Drive. See Back up and restore your photos. - Bring photos back. From a Drive album, select photos, tap the move icon, and pick an album of the phone: from a cloud, Piktures always copies, and the originals stay on the Drive. ⋮ → Restore copies a whole backup folder into Pictures/Piktures Restore on the phone.
With a paid plan, and during your first 3 days, a transfer runs in the background. With the free plan, a Please wait… window shows its progress, with an ad.
Piktures and Google Drive: the facts
| App | Piktures, by Diune, for Android 11 or later |
| Price | Free, with a few Google ads. The one-time No ads purchase removes them |
| Account | Your Google account for the Drive. No Piktures account |
| What Piktures sees on the Drive | Only the files Piktures uploaded: copied, moved or backed up from the phone |
| What it doesn't see | Photos already on the Drive, or added from other apps or the Google Drive website |
| Google accounts | Each account once. The first access is free, the next ones need Premium or Prime |
| Sign-in | Google's own sign-in, opened by the app |
| Where your photos show | In the Storage tab under CLOUD, then as albums in the Albums tab |
| Sort orders | Every order, as on the phone |
| Phone to Drive | Copy, move, and automatic backup (backup with Premium or Prime) |
| Drive to phone | Copy, never move; Restore for a whole backup |
| Connection | Browsing the Drive uses your connection, Wi-Fi or mobile data. Automatic backup runs on Wi-Fi only by default |
| Other clouds | OneDrive, Dropbox, Koofr, Yandex Disk, Nextcloud, WebDAV servers, and SMB network drives |
Questions
Why don't my Google Drive photos appear in Piktures?
Because Piktures only has access to the files it uploaded itself. The photos that were already on your Drive, or that another app or the Google Drive website added, stay invisible to Piktures. To see them in Piktures, copy them to the phone with another app, or to a cloud Piktures reads in full, such as OneDrive or Dropbox.
Does removing the access and adding it back help?
No. A new access also sees only the files uploaded by Piktures, so it may show fewer photos than before. See Before you remove your access.
Is Piktures free?
Yes. The free Basic plan shows a few ads and allows one remote access, so one Google account. Your first 3 days are without ads. The one-time No ads purchase removes the ads; Premium, a one-time purchase, and Prime, a monthly subscription, also unlock more accesses and automatic backup. See In-app purchases.
Can I copy photos from Google Drive to OneDrive or Dropbox?
Yes. In a Drive album, select the photos, tap the move icon, tap Current drive, and choose the other cloud under CLOUD. From a cloud, Piktures always copies: the originals stay on the Drive.
Does Piktures upload my phone photos to Google Drive by itself?
No. Your photos leave the phone only when you share them, or when you copy, move or back them up to a cloud or a drive you connected. No Piktures server receives them. See Our product principles.