What do you want: Save space on your Android device or can you edit your videos on your smartphone? Now, you’re got one or the other — a funny Android bug that appeared and then disappeared, and now reappears, making it impossible to fully use H.265 / HEVC encryption on your device.
Many Android users have complained to the Google Photos Help Forum (since October last year) that videos taken using the H.265 codec on various Android devices cannot be edited in the Google Photos app. For example, if you are trying to organize a photo, for example, tapping “Save Copy” gives the illusion that something is going on:
But in reality nothing happens, save this annoying and common error message:
To avoid this you need to temporarily disable H.265 encryption. That means your videos will take up more space on your device, but at least you can trim them in Google Photos. At pixel, it’s as easy as dragging your camera app’s settings up, scrolling down a bit, tapping Advanced and disabling “Save videos efficiently”.
On other Androids, see the layout (if applicable) in one place, however the steps to get there may have slightly different names.
Otherwise, you can use a third-party utility like Adobe Premiere Rush, Inshot’s Video Editor or KineMaster to organize your H.265 videos. You may have to pay for the application (or be affected by annoying advertising or watermarks), so we hope Google fixes this annoying issue soon. Otherwise, you can always download your video from Google Photos (on the web) and edit it from there using various free tools. It may not be small as a solution, but it will cost you nothing.
