Google is killing this handy way to back up PC folders to Google Photos

Google has long offered the Google Drive desktop app, which lets you easily back up and sync your PC folders to Google Drive. The app also allows users to back up their photos and videos to Google Photos. Unfortunately, the company has now confirmed that it’s killing off this Google Photos integration.

Google announced on its support page and in emails to subscribers that the Google Drive desktop app will no longer support backups to Google Photos. The company clarifies that any items previously backed up to Google Photos via this method won’t be affected by this change.

Google also outlined a timeline for this move. From June 15, you won’t be able to set up new backup folders for Google Photos via the Drive desktop app. Existing folders will continue to sync, though. It’ll also issue in-app notifications to warn users of the coming change. From August 10, Google Drive’s desktop app will no longer support Google Photos backups.

So what can desktop users do about this if they’d like to continue backing up media and folders to Google Photos? Well, Google says you’ll need to set up Back up folders via the Google Photos website. This can be accessed by tapping the plus icon in the top right corner of the website. However, one major downside to this approach is that backups only occur if the Google Photos website is open. This isn’t a great solution if you want backups to seamlessly happen in the background.

Otherwise, Google also recommends using the Google Photos web app if you want backups to run in the background. Nevertheless, this still means people using the Google Drive desktop app now have to run two apps in the background instead of just one.