No more free storage on Google Photos

It happened! Google calculated that the business it got into with Google Photos, while it has irreversibly changed the way we store photos, is very expensive for itself.

Disk space (storage) and its maintenance cost a lot, and not a little. The energy necessary to ensure the continuity of its services plays an even greater role, especially in the era of caring for the climate.

Someone at Google did not consider the fact that people like what is free, especially when you can’t see the difference. And we are talking about photos and videos stored by us on Google Photos in compressed form, but without losing visual quality, and at the same time without them taking up disk space available as part of the service.

And so after over 4 trillion (4,000,000,000,000) photos uploaded by users to Google Photos, and as large companies began to look at the money they were generating from their operations during the pandemic, it was time for Google to start thinking like a profit-oriented company.

On one hand, someone had a great plan, to offer something that would revolutionize the market. On the other hand, someone had an even better plan!

Did anyone know that after a few years (over 5) of using Google Photos, it would be increasingly difficult for anyone to move from it to another solution, if such a thing exists?

Co się zmieni?

Google has announced that High quality (free unlimited storage) will no longer be free as of June 1, 2021.

Photos that previously did not count toward your Google Mail and Drive storage will suddenly start counting toward your storage.

While people who use Google Photos to store their photos in their original resolution will not see any change, everyone else will.

Fortunately, not everything is so bad.

Namely, photos and videos uploaded to Google Photos before June 1, 2021 will still be available and will not use up the space available in the service. However, all new photos and videos uploaded since June 1, 2021 will use up our available space.

Considering that the 15 GB of default space, divided between files on Google Drive, Gmail and now photos, is really nothing. We will quickly have to reach for our wallet.

While I personally pay £15.99 per year (89.99zł) for 100GB as part of the Google service (of which I have about 60% occupied), I bet that within the first few months of the changes coming into effect (and let’s take into account that the changes are coming during the summer holidays!) I will be forced to switch to a 1TB package, which is around £7.99 per month!

People who use the basic 15GB package, depending on how active they are, will notice within the first month that they suddenly run out of space. Well, unless they have a phone from Google.

Users of Google Pixel 1 to 5 (and newer) phones will still have the option of using unlimited storage space for photos stored in High Quality (compressed, but visually indistinguishable).

Google’s entry is clear enough, but it leaves a lot of questions unanswered.

While Google is betting that 80% of users will be able to fit up to 3 years of photos within 15GB without having to buy a larger package, I personally sincerely doubt it.

I assume that in the Google Photos settings we will still have the option of choosing to store photos in original quality, as well as high, compressed. However, this will only slightly delay the inevitable, i.e. paying.

To understand what takes up space in the Google Photos service, the company refers to a dedicated page.

What’s next?

As Google promises, in June 2021 it will release a special tool that will allow us to transparently manage copies of our photos. In particular, it will inform us about the photos that are taking up our space and are of poor quality, overexposed, underexposed, blurred - those that we would normally delete, but since everything has been free so far, we simply did not want to.

This method will allow us to regain some space, although, as I mentioned earlier, it will only slightly postpone the inevitable.

If we are already interested in how much the “new” (old) service will cost us in the future, Google refers to their website Google One. The Google One service allows, as part of a private Google account, to purchase one package and share it within the Family Group. The situation is different for users who, like how, use a Google account within Google Workspace.

If we decide to download photos, videos (and everything else) that we currently store in Google, we can do so using the dedicated Google Takeout page.

When I did my first Takeout about 2 years ago, my photos took up over 120GB!

This method allows us to save everything that we currently have stored in Google and transfer it somewhere else. Whether to an external hard drive (back to the past), or to transfer it to another service.

Inne usługi?

You might ask yourself, is there a good alternative to Google Photos?

Well, yes and no.

Before we rush to move our precious memories from a safe place to one that could be the final nail in the coffin, think about it!

When searching Google for information about an alternative to Google Photos, we can find several companies, but no one guarantees that these companies won’t close down overnight, cutting us off from our precious memories.

While Google’s move is not cool (but understandable), the company itself knows that this type of change is not something that can be replaced overnight, which is why they give us more than 6 months’ notice.

The same goes for an external drive. While we can use it as a backup, we can’t count on it being our only lifeline. If it’s stolen or damaged, we lose everything. Even keeping it in a bank safe deposit box doesn’t guarantee anything.

So what? You ask.

Well, one of the players on the market, especially in the initial stage of abandoning Google Photos, will be Amazon with its Amazon Photos service (Amazon Photos).

Amazon Photos

With Amazon Photos (part of the paid Prime), we get unlimited space for our photos (in original quality!), but our videos count towards the 5GB limit of the basic package, which won’t be enough for long.

While this service is trustworthy (Amazon won’t close or change the terms of service overnight), it’s not without you. Sooner or later, we’ll have to reach for our wallets here too.

So what else?

The problem is that the number of important services is negligible and Google knows that well.

I think we’ll have to wait and see what changes in the meantime.

Of course, there are services from other service providers where we can store our photos (while paying for disk space), but it will be really hard to replace something that has so far offered us so much for so little (for free).

Dropbox?

Before Google Photos, I used Dropbox to store copies of my photos. Their service also offers dedicated cloud storage options.

Prices start at £7.99 for 2TB, but you won’t find any photo and video compression options like Google offers with Google Photos, so you’ll quickly fill up your available space.

I’ll be keeping a close eye on what happens over the next few months and I’ll definitely write about something else that’s worth considering and could be a good alternative.

We’ll see if players like Flickr take advantage of the opportunity with their Flickr Pro package.

Certainly, Apple users will be more likely to stick with iCloud photos than experiment with Google Photos, especially since Apple has released its version of Apple One.

Microsoft, as part of its 365 package could also take some of Google’s market share, as could Adobe with its 1TB package and free Lightroom app for desktop and mobile devices (£9.98 per month).