What would you like to know

Google Photos has distinguished itself by offering free and unlimited storage of “high quality” photos. It goes away. As of June 1, 2021, Google Photos will no longer offer free unlimited storage. Here’s what you need to know.

What’s changing: no more free unlimited storage

Google Photos only offered unlimited free storage for photos and videos saved in “High Quality”, which it defined as 16 megapixels for 1080p resolution photos and videos. If you choose to download photos and videos in high quality (instead of the original quality), Google allows you to download an unlimited number.

From June 1, 2021, Google Photos will lose its free and unlimited storage space for “high quality” photos and videos. After this date, any photos you upload will count towards your Google Account storage limit. This limit is 15 GB and is shared between services such as Google Photos, Google Drive, and Gmail.

If you need more storage for your photos, you’ll need to pay for a Google One storage plan.

Here’s the good news: Any existing photos you’ve already uploaded are grandfathered and won’t count to your storage. Only new photos that you upload to Google Photos after this date will count towards the storage limit.

How to get more storage for your photos

If you like Google Photos, you can still use it. 15GB of free storage is more than many other services offer, so it’s still not a bad deal. For example, Apple only offers 5 GB of free storage with iCloud.

If you plan to continue using Google Photos, you can monitor how much space you’ve used and how much space you have on the Google One Storage website. Google also has a storage management page which will help you free up storage space in your Google account.

You can also buy more storage space through Google One. Plans start at $ 1.99 per month for 100GB of storage.

How to download all your Google photos

You might like to leave Google Photos behind. You can download an archive of all the photos and videos you have ever uploaded to Google Photos from the Google Takeout website. (Google Takeout also allows you to download other data stored in your Google Account.)

You can then upload the photos to any other photo service you want to use or keep your photos on your own devices. Make sure to back up your photos and have multiple copies if you choose to store them yourself!

Alternatives to Google Photos

Google Photos isn’t the only game in town. Now that it won’t offer unlimited storage anymore, that might not be the best option for many people who were already using it.

• ICloud Photos: If you’re using an iPhone, iPad, Mac, or other Apple devices, you might want to use Apple’s iCloud Photos. If you take photos with your iPhone, it is well integrated with no third-party apps required. iCloud Photos has more limited free storage – just 5GB free – but you can get 50GB of storage for $ 0.99 per month. You can even buy 200GB of storage for $ 2.99 per month and share it with your whole family. (The 50GB plan cannot be shared.) You can also pay for iCloud storage as part of an Apple One subscription plan.
• Amazon Photos: If you’re already paying for Amazon Prime, Amazon offers free, unlimited storage of full-resolution photos. Amazon isn’t the first service many people think of when it comes to photo storage, but it’s a good option.
• Microsoft OneDrive: The OneDrive app can automatically upload photos and videos from your phone to your OneDrive storage. OneDrive is built into Windows 10 and available on other platforms. If you pay for Microsoft 365, you have 1TB of OneDrive storage space to store all those photos.
• Dropbox: If you already use and pay for Dropbox, you can upload your photos to Dropbox instead of Google Photos. Like other services, the Dropbox app can automatically upload photos from your phone. However, Dropbox only offers 2GB of free space and only offers more expensive storage plans starting at $ 9.99 per month. Dropbox probably isn’t the best choice, unless you’ve already invested in it.

Google Photos is still a great photo storage solution, especially if you use Android devices and other Google services. But it’s no longer free for everyone, and that’s a big change.

If you’re an iPhone user who uses Google Photos instead of iCloud Photos because Google Photos is free, maybe it’s time to consider switching.