Google Photos to end free unlimited storage on June 1, 2021
Amber Neely
Photos and videos uploaded to Google Photos in high quality will begin counting toward users' 15GB of Google Account storage next June.
When Google Photos launched in 2015, the tech giant had originally offered users the ability to upload an unlimited amount of photos at "high quality." The company has announced that starting on June 1st in 2021, photos will once again count toward your overall Google Account storage limit of 15GB.
Google tweeted out the change from the official Google Photos Twitter account on Wednesday.
Starting June 1, 2021, new photos and videos uploaded in High quality will begin counting towards your 15GB of Google Account storage.
— Google Photos (@googlephotos) November 11, 2020
Learn more here: https://t.co/SuS34HFjAu
Google claims that the reason for the change is to provide users with a higher quality experience and plans to further develop Google Photos in the future.
Only photos uploaded after June 1, 2021, will count toward the 15GB limit that comes with every Google Account or toward the additional storage that has been purchased via Google One. The company points out that Google Account storage is shared across Google Drive, Gmail, and Google Photos, meaning that your new photos will compete for space with email attachments and any documents you've stored in Google Drive.
Pixel users are the only ones who will not need to worry about the change. All high-quality videos and photos will continue to be exempt from the change after June 1, 2021.
Google is offering users a personalized estimate that may explain how long the storage will last, stating that it takes into account how often users back up photos and video content.
In June 2021, Google will release a new tool in the Photos app that will allow users to manage photos and videos. The tool will analyze a user's videos and photos and suggest deleting anything that appears to be too low quality.
Google suggests that users who need more space could consider purchasing extra storage through Google One, where plans start at $1.99 per month for 100 gigabytes of storage.
Those with an Apple ID may want to consider backing up their images through iCloud. For $0.99 a month, users can get 50GB of storage that syncs across all Apple devices. For $2.99 a month, users can get 200GB of storage. For those who have a truly massive amount to back up, a $9.99 per month tier offers 2TB of storage.
Apple One subscribers can expand their limit even further by purchasing the Apple One Premier plan and an additional 2TB of storage, which costs $34.94 per month, includes 4TB of storage and comes bundled with Apple Music Family, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, Apple News+, and Apple Fitness+.
Thomas Sibilly
AppleInsider Staff
William Gallagher
Malcolm Owen
Christine McKee
21 Comments
Google Photos isn’t free. The company retains a perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free right-to-use your pics for any money-making purpose the company chooses, even after you delete your photos and account.
Don't cry because it's going away. Smile because we've had it for this long. And crowdsourced their innovation in ML/AI and loose definition of ownership. Haha. Seriously though, I use it as a simple backup and this will drive me to iCloud storage and make an even more convincing argument for some Apple One tier.
I've had the 2TB iCloud storage from when it was first offered - with a boatload of Apple gear (4 studios), 10s of thousands of photos, videos & full soundtracks, I still have room to breathe. On top of that, and for added convenience, I have a paid subscription to Dropbox, PLUS…………(as if that wasn't enough) 1TB Adobe Cloud account! But as a creative professional (Commercial Artist and Soundtrack Composer) I'm the type who, after being on computers since the mid-80s, has up to 40TB of external backup drives on all of my Macs (and that's from the paranoia that comes from having lost only one file, a single commercial job - one that was finished and never needed reworking). Storage is really, relatively speaking, dirt-cheap. I compare a 10TB WD drive today at under $300. to my first 2MB external drive in the '80s at over $800., and the word "exponential" certainly describes the arc of technology.
Suckers. Now they have you. There are many reasons I don't use any of Google's 'free' services.