google-drivegoogle-photos
Starting in July 2019, Google Photos and Google Drive are no longer synced. That's great.
I still have a Google Photos folder in my Drive, and I understand that's expected. But I can't find any reference that will tell me it's 100% safe to remove this folder without affecting Google Photos.
Can anyone find such a reference, so I can go ahead and delete it?
You already have disabled the feature to show Google Photos folder inside my Google Drive.
Now you can delete Google Photos folder from the Drive. It is safe. It will not delete photos from Google Photos.
Source: Self tested.
There is no right combination of settings.
The Google Photos upload checkbox (in the Backup and Sync preferences) is a blanket toggle: it affects all the selected local backup/sync folders. So if you want to backup Drive-only files, you need to leave it unchecked and continue manually uploading your images to the Photos app.
As of yet, the B&S client does not allow fine-grained control of what gets uploaded into Photos. Also for backups, be reminded that Photos has limitations on file types and min/max sizes.
As a workaround for periodic backups to Photos, you can try the following:
For "Removing item", select "Don't remove items everywhere".
Select only the folder(s) you want to back up to Photos
As a side-effect to using B&S, you also retain the images in your Google Drive. But they are linked invisibly to Photos, so:
Best Answer
Yes, it is safe. You can delete Google Photos folder from Drive.
From Google Photos Help: