Pixel 3 photo selection directs to the "recent" folder - which is always empty

Just got a shiny new Pixel 3. When I go to add pictures to an observation I’m making, adding photos by default goes to my “recent” folder, but there is never anything there. I’m not sure why. I have to navigate to photos and choose from there. Is there a way to redirect what folder it is pulling up by default?

I have a Pixel 3a and it works as expected. Are you using the default Camera app or some other camera app?

Should be the default, I don’t have anything else. I do have photos backing up to Google drive. I tried looking for the recent folder in docs actually, and I can’t even see where it is.

I have a pixel 3 XL. I did a few tests.

  1. I have photos in my recent folder. I opened the Inat App and pressed + and then Choose Image. My Recent photos were shown. So I could select a photo and add to an observation.

  2. I opened Google Photos on my phone and opened the menu and then pressed Free up space. This removed all photos that were already backed up. I then repeated step 1 above, this time no photos of plants were available to select in my Recent folder.

So it appears that photos are removed from recent once they are backed up and the Free Up Space process is invoked. Or, perhaps backup & sync needs set up

“Recent” isn’t a folder, but lists of recently used files of various types. A lot of privacy apps and/or settings clear such lists to protect your privacy.

I don’t know how to change the default location, but you can use Photos(or other file/picture manager), select the photos (press and hold on first one for a second or two to select multiple), and then share to the iNat app. I found I prefer this way as I can rotate and crop photos easier as I go.

So it seems my issue is just that nothing is appearing as recent on my phone. I have had the issue come up with other apps too, now. The problem is I can’t find any help articles for the Pixel on why this is happening. I’ll try making a thread on the phone’s support forum - fingers crossed!

Navigating to photos adds another step to making observations that already take a while to do. Just want it to work like normal!