Snapgate
Snapgate

Your cloud fills up with photos you never meant to keep

The parking ticket, the receipt, a meeting whiteboard. Google Photos backs up your entire camera roll, or none of it. Snapgate puts a gate in between.

How it works Why we built it

Android 11 or later · One-time purchase, no subscription

The problem isn't your camera, it's all-or-nothing

Google Photos backup has exactly two states: on for an entire folder, or off. There is no middle ground, which is why your storage fills with things you photographed to look at for ten minutes.

There are two ways to stop it filling up: review your camera roll regularly and delete by hand — which nobody does — or decide in the moment. Snapgate is the second one.

Four steps, and only one is yours

It all happens in the seconds after the shutter, while you still remember why you took that photo.

  1. You take the photo

    With your usual camera. Snapgate replaces nothing and gets in the way of nothing.

  2. A notification arrives

    Under half a second after the system registers the image, with a thumbnail so you can see what you're deciding about.

  3. You tap Upload or Discard

    Right there in the notification. No need to open the app or confirm anything else.

  4. Discarded photos stay on your phone

    They are not deleted and not uploaded: they simply never take up space in your Google account.

And when you don't want to decide every time

Because there are stretches where being asked is worse than being helped.

Temporary modes

"Don't upload anything for eight hours." "Upload everything for four days, I'm travelling." They always expire on their own, so you can't leave one running by accident.

Context rules

Decide by time of day, day of week, folder or place. Photos taken during work hours don't have to end up in your personal account.

Collections

Send what you approve straight into a specific album in your library, skipping the camera roll entirely.

Decision window

A photo is only offered during its first few minutes. If you don't answer, it stays on the phone and stops bothering you.

Negligible battery use

0.02 seconds of CPU per minute in the background, measured. With the screen off it does nothing at all.

Six languages

Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, German and Italian — including the plural forms almost nobody gets right.

What Snapgate cannot do

Snapgate has no servers. There is nowhere to send your photos, because no such place exists.

When you connect your Google account, the app requests a specific permission that only lets it add photos to your library. It cannot read them, cannot modify them and cannot delete anything you already have. That limitation isn't our promise: Google enforces it, and you can check it on the consent screen before you accept.

Location, if you turn on place-based rules, is read at the moment you take a photo and is never stored or sent anywhere. There is no analytics, no tracking and no advertising.

The only destination a photo ever reaches is your own library, and only when you ask for it.

Fair questions

Do I have to turn off Google Photos backup?

Yes, and it's the one step no design can avoid. While it's on, Google Photos uploads your whole camera roll no matter what Snapgate does. It's a single switch and the setup walks you to it.

What if I don't answer the notification?

Nothing bad. The photo stays on your phone, isn't uploaded, and after a few minutes it stops asking. Configurable, five minutes by default.

Does it delete my photos?

Never. Discard means "don't upload this"; the photo stays in your camera roll exactly as before.

Why does it need a permanent notification?

Because Android only tells running apps about a new photo. It's the price of finding out immediately instead of every fifteen minutes. You can hide it from the system settings.

Is it a subscription?

No. Fourteen-day trial, then a one-time unlock.