Samsung Gallery App Adds Native Google Account Sync Following OneDrive Cut

OPA WIRE, Nov 11 (OPA) — Samsung announced the new synchronization feature for its Gallery application, marking a major shift in the company's cloud partnerships. The integration follows the termination of Gallery's Microsoft OneDrive support back in September, leaving users without a direct native backup pipeline until now.

The feature is currently rolling out to select Galaxy devices running One UI 9, Samsung's latest custom Android interface, with broader deployment planned in phases. Users can activate the tool by tapping the cloud icon within the Gallery app or by navigating to settings to enable photo and video synchronization with their Google account.

Media files backed up through this method consume standard Google account storage, which defaults to 5GB and can be expanded to 15GB with phone number verification. Additional storage requires a Google One subscription, priced at $2 monthly for 100GB or $3 monthly for 200GB, shared across Google services.

The update also introduces a new "Free up space" option within the synchronization settings, allowing users to remove original files from their device storage while retaining thumbnail previews in the Gallery app. Synchronized files remain accessible across multiple Galaxy devices logged into the same account.