Google Photos may soon let you sync your Locked Folder to the cloud for convenience

Yes, I know it sounds contradictory, and perhaps it is, but that’s not stopping Google. Pretty soon, you may be able to back your Locked Folder up to the Photos cloud for safekeeping. While anyone who values their privacy to the fullest extent may take issue with this update, those who use Google Photos for standard photo storage and then like having the Locked Folder for highly sensitive images like medical snapshots or gift ideas may not mind so much.

First announced on the Google News Telegram group, in version 6.23 of the application, Google “has added a hidden settings page that is responsible for backing up photos and videos from your Locked Folder to the cloud.” Once the feature is released officially, the page will then be available for all to see and no longer hidden, of course.

I probably don’t need to tell you this, but one should only keep images they wouldn’t mind showing their grandmother in a service like Google Photos, so it may be more of a welcome and convenient feature than you’d think. When I first checked the tool out when it launched two years ago, I saw that it didn’t sync to the cloud and was immediately turned off of the idea of using it whatsoever, but that’s just me.

I have no doubt that Locked Folder cloud sync will be optional, so let me know in the comments if this is something you’d invite into your Photos experience or not. Are you the type to rely entirely on Google’s cloud to move to a new device? Every time I have emulators set up on my device, I wipe out my save files when upgrading to a new Pixel, so perhaps storing my save state snapshots in this folder will be beneficial while keeping them separate from my family photos.