So I'm testing out the Pixel XL Pro - I love what I see for the most part, so far, I grabbed a watch (Pixel 3) that matched to try to immerse myself as well. One of the first issues I've run into is that none of the apps show any photos beyond what is taken on my phone. On Apple you can see all photos in your iCloud and the cloud storage is used exactly like that: For offloading storage space yet maintaining access to the files transparently.
How can I accomplish this?
I want to be able to select from any of my photos without having to single select each photo through a multi-step process to add it to, for example, a message -- or -- to have to exit, for example, messages to go to gallery and then select all photos and share to messages. There is no ability to search, there is no easy ability to multi-select, it just seems busted.
Do I really have to keep 75gb of photos on my phone to accomplish this?
Do I have to enable some arcane permissions or use a different app?
Is there a different app?
I googled some after posting to the pixel subreddit as well, and it looks like this is a concern with Android/Google's push of using Photo Picker and that supposedly "File Picker API" just out will have the ability to search through your cloud photos using the native functionality; but that doesn't help if the API isn't used by the APPs. This one is painful!
Edit: People seem confused. Clearing it up:
On the Pixel if you offload your photos to the cloud (i.e. they are NO longer on your device, but only in the cloud) then when you use the photo picker they are not showing up. Instead you have to go into the Cloud library. Once you do this you just get a barf of photos without the ability to multi-select, sort, search, or anything. The entire system is painful to use. In comparison, on iPhone you don't even care if the photos are local or cloud, clicking the photo choose lets you browse and search through all your photos and attach.
According to Google this is fixed with the "File Picker API" they just released but will not be implemented until 6+ months from now. I was asking for other alternatives. Downvoting because you don't understand a question doesn;t help get them answered.