Google Photos will lose free unlimited from summer 2021
From June 1, 2021, the Google Photos service will begin charging for exceeding the 15 GB limit allocated to users for storing photos and videos in “high quality” (resolution no more than 1080p), according to The Verge. For five years, the service provided this opportunity completely free of charge and without volume restrictions. The company will introduce similar measures in relation to Google Drive tools – Google Workspace and Google Sheets.
All photos, videos, and documents uploaded to the above cloud storage until June next year will not be counted. The 15 GB free volume will start with photos and videos in high and express quality, as well as files that will be uploaded to storage starting from June 1, 2021. At the same time, it is noted that for owners of Google Pixel smartphones, this restriction on uploading photos and videos in express quality (but not in original quality) will not be introduced. Even if they exceed 15 GB in Google Photos, they will not require a monthly fee. Such is a nice bonus for those who use Google devices.
By the way, even 15 GB is more than comparable services offered by competitors. For example, Apple’s free iCloud storage limit is 5 GB – you have to pay further. According to Google, it will take about three years for 80% of Google Photos users to reach 15GB of uploaded content. For users who will approach the free limit, the company will send appropriate notifications. The introduction of new photo management tools will allow you to quickly find those pictures that the user would like to delete anyway.
According to the resource The Verge, with future changes in Google Photos policy, the company wants to push more people to use the paid cloud service Google One, which offers more convenient and diverse tools. However, Google itself explains this by the fact that almost countless numbers of photos and videos have already been uploaded to Google Photos.
“There are over 4 trillion photos stored in Google Photos today. Every week, 28 billion new photos and videos are uploaded to the service’s cloud storage. Since so many of you rely so heavily on Google Photos to preserve your memories, it is very important for us not only to provide a very high-quality product but also to maintain its stable operation in the long term, ”the Verge quoted Google as saying.
As for the prices for the tariff plans of the cloud service Google One, no changes are planned for them. At the moment, the prices are as follows:
Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides, Google Drawings, Google Forms, and Google Jamboard will also see similar changes in data storage policy along with the photo service. The company also noted that they are going to delete Google accounts of those users who have not used them for two years. Before that, Google will notify users several times about the upcoming removal. If no action is taken by the account owner, the company will begin removing the content that is contained on the account. The measures will apply to the services Gmail, Drive, and Photos.
