All Good Things Must Come To An End - Google Photos Ending Free, Unlimited Storage

[Stabbers]

Starting in June 1st, 2021, new photo and video uploads will count towards the 15GB of free storage included with every Google Account

 

Google cites a growing demand for storage for the changes, saying that this is a necessary step to keep pace with demand

Quote

"Today, more than 4 trillion photos are stored in Google Photos, and every week 28 billion new photos and videos are uploaded"

"Any photos or videos you've uploaded in High quality before June 1st will not count toward your 15GB of free storage"

 

Original Quality photos and videos are not affected by this change due to existing policy of these items already counting towards your storage quota.

 

Some good news for Pixel diehards: 

Pixel 1-5 owners will not be affected as long as photos and videos are uploaded in High Quality from the device. They will continue to be exempt from this change even after June 1st.

 

With this change, Google launches a new "Personalized Estimate" feature within the Photos app. This feature estimates how long a users storage will last, taking into account how frequently a user backs up their photos, videos, and other content to their Google Account.

 

 

Launching in June 2021 will be a free tool in Photos that will help you review photos for deletion like dark, blurry photos and/or large videos.

 

 

OP Thoughts

Google Photos was my go to advice for anyone who wanted to backup more than 5/15gb of photos but didn't want to pay for expanded storage subscriptions. That'll have to change and will most likely impact other users in a similar position who do not see the need for paying monthly subscriptions just to keep their media. 

 

I guess I'll have to expand my Plex Server to include personal Photos and Videos if I ditch my Pixel 3XL

 

Sources

Google Blog

[givingtnt]

Google's got us all fooled.
>Gives free storage
>Now that everything is there it's more annoying to remove them and find new space than pay for storage
>More users pay for storage

[Letgomyleghoe]

still mad apple took away my free 15gb's with ios14

[Stabbers]

6 minutes ago, givingtnt said:

Google's got us all fooled.
>Gives free storage
>Now that everything is there it's more annoying to remove them and find new space than pay for storage
>More users pay for storage

This hits extra for Pixel users. For the past 4 years we've enjoyed unlimited backup and now the sun is setting, unless you keep your Pixel 1-5 for the foreseeable future of course

[AbydosOne]

4 minutes ago, Stabbers said:

more than 4 trillion photos

Holy...

 

I've been known to wax poetic about the shift in the ethos of photography from even the early 2000s until now, but I guess the scale hadn't quite dawned on me. Photography has gone from primarily capturing the momentous (with any works capturing the mundane doing it intentionally) to just capturing everything, and never bothering to ascribe value to any of it.

 

The vast majority of photos will never exist in tangible form, so it's not like they'll be found in a shoebox in 30 years, which makes me wonder about the longevity of the historic record from this period. Quantity vs quality, I guess... who knows what mundane things people have captured that might hold value to someone else who'll never know the photo even existed...

[Juanitology]

meh doesn't affect me. I have unlimited storage for 9.99/month. I have close to 30TB on google cloud. 

[suicidalfranco]

meh, subscribed to the 2$ sub at the begining of the year. Not going to feel a thing from this news.

[Drama Lama]

26 minutes ago, Stabbers said:

"Any photos or videos you've uploaded in High quality before June 1st will not count toward your 15GB of free storage"

so you have 15gb of free storage but that's not unlimited.

Oops now I understand

Edited November 11, 2020 by Drama Lama

[Parideboy]

Ouch... I've got like 10 years of stuff on Google Photos...

[SpaceGhostC2C]

27 minutes ago, givingtnt said:

Google's got us all fooled.

Did it, though? Did we ever believe it was going to be different?

[SpaceGhostC2C]

Quote

"Any photos or videos you've uploaded in High quality before June 1st will not count toward your 15GB of free storage"

 

They count toward your AI training contribution instead.

[Orangeator]

Will there be an option to transfer the photos to another host directly? Meaning users will not have to locally download all the photos stored on Google Photos, then upload them to a new host. Rather, they can have the photos transferred from Google Photo's servers to another server? 

[bit]

1 hour ago, Juanitology said:

meh doesn't affect me. I have unlimited storage for 9.99/month. I have close to 30TB on google cloud. 

of WHAT

[Parideboy]

2 hours ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

They count toward your AI training contribution instead.

That's why it was "free" in the first place. Guess they got all that they needed lol

[IronSoldier]

Buy an old Pixel 1. Transfer files to it. Upload to photos via the phone. Unlimited forever 

[staticpage]

MEGA did this same thing only worse they put a max of 5gb per day on all downloads. I was doing some BMW coding to get my windows to roll up when car is parked and the windscreen senses rain. The Daten files I needed where like 15GB hosted only on MEGA I had to pay $15 for free files or wait 3 days.

[poochyena]

I actually just got google fiber 2 days ago, and it included 1tb cloud storage, so its good timing for me.

 

[Chiyawa]

I never trust online storage. I always use SD cards to store my photos and videos.

[Tamesh16]

all my pictures are backed up there, i figured this would come at some point, but it was great while it lasted

[Tamesh16]

2 minutes ago, Chiyawa said:

I never trust online storage. I always use SD cards to store my photos and videos.

i use at as an off site storage, incase of hurricanes or flooding which can happen at any time at least some important data is backed up

[Chiyawa]

2 minutes ago, Tamesh16 said:

i use at as an off site storage, incase of hurricanes or flooding which can happen at any time at least some important data is backed up

True. I actually invest a small safe and have all my storage medium (HDD, SD cards, Pendirves, DVDs and Blu-rays) stored in there.

[Vishera]

When i need more storage - i buy more hard drives.

I have 8TB in total.

[Stabbers]

1 hour ago, Vishera said:

When i need more storage - i buy more hard drives.

I have 8TB in total.

I'll be honest with you, this is kind of a strange comment due to the fact that Google Photos tackles a very mobile device focused problem. 

 

While this is a solution for more PC minded folks, it doesn't come close to the convenience of using Google Photos or the equivalent. Not to mention the fact that Google Photos makes it extremely easy for the average consumer to backup to the cloud to free up local storage on their smartphones while on the go. 

[Vishera]

Just now, Stabbers said:

I'll be honest with you, this is kind of a strange comment due to the fact that Google Photos tackles a very mobile device focused problem. 

 

While this is a solution for more PC minded folks, it doesn't come close to the convenience of using Google Photos or the equivalent. Not to mention the fact that Google Photos makes it extremely easy for the average consumer to backup to the cloud to free up local storage on their smartphones on the go. 

I can make a server for the phone.

[Loote]

23 minutes ago, Vishera said:

I can make a server for the phone.

Limited by your home connection, forcing you to have the machine running 24/7. You can of course use some form of hosting too. In the end Photos app was very convenient, I copied the full files onto PC too, but sometimes accessing the cloud versions was nicer than walking to get the phone.

 

That was a really nice feature and it's gone, rip.