Google will end its free unlimited Photos storage on June 1, 2021, imposing a 15GB cap, but photos and documents uploaded before then will not count against cap
but Pixel owners get an exemption Babu Mohan / Android Central : Google's future Pixel phones won't offer unlimited Google Photos backups Mehreen Kasana / Input : Google Photos won't be free and unlimited come June 2021 Owen Hughes / TechRepublic : Google: We're capping your free cloud storage at 15GB starting next year Oliver Haslam / Redmond Pie : Google Photos Free Unlimited Storage Is Going Away By June 2021 Google Workspace Updates : Changes to Google Workspace storage policies starting June 1, 2021 Scott Bicheno / Telecoms.com : The antitrust dragnet closes on Google Firstpost Tech : Google Photos will put an end to its unlimited free uploads starting from June 2021 Charlesarthur / The Overspill : Start Up No.1428: Google to start charging for 15GB+ Photos, Schmidt disses social, our splintering realities, frack the moon!, and more Aroon Deep / MediaNama : Google Photos to charge for uploads beyond 15GB starting June 2021 Colm Gorey / Silicon Republic : Google Photos to stop offering free, unlimited storage in 2021 Megan Ellis / Memeburn : Google Photos ending unlimited free storage Martin Brinkmann / gHacks Technology News : Google is ending free unlimited Google Photos storage on June 1st, 2021 for nearly everyone Ivan Mehta / The Next Web : Google Photos is ending free unlimited storage in 2021 — so what are your options? Rajesh Pandey / iPhone Hacks : Google Photos Removing Free Unlimited Storage Option in June 2021 Charanjeet Singh / Fossbytes : Google Photos Unlimited Backup To Shutdown In June 2021 Chris Davies / SlashGear : A huge Google Photos change is coming - and you may have to pay Jared Newman / Fast Company : Google Photos's promise of unlimited free storage is going away Campbell Kwan / ZDNet : Google Photos to end free unlimited storage from June next year Amber Neely / AppleInsider : Google Photos to end free unlimited storage on June 1, 2021 Samuel Martinez / Pocketnow : Google Account and Google Photos' storage policies will change, for worse? Jasmine Gearie / TechRadar : Google Photos axes free, unlimited storage for ‘high quality’ snaps Maggie Tillman / Pocket-lint : Google Photos won't offer free unlimited photo storage after 1 June 2021 Jacob Siegal / BGR : Google Photos is ending free unlimited storage on June 1st, 2021 Anthony Ha / TechCrunch : Daily Crunch: Google Photos will end free, unlimited storage Ben Schoon / 9to5Google : How to export your pictures and videos from Google Photos Digital Photography Review : Google is killing off free unlimited storage in Google Photos next year Jefferson Graham / USA Today : Google Photos to drop free unlimited storage on images and videos. Here are your other options. Nathan Ord / HotHardware.com News : Google Photos Is Killing One Of Its Best Features Starting On June 1st, 2021 Brian Barrett / Wired : Free, Unlimited Google Photos Storage Will End Next Year Tweets: Dieter Bohn / @backlon : After five years of being completely free, Google Photos will begin capping free uploads at 15GB on June 1st, 2021. Everything uploaded until then won't count against the cap, but it seriously complicates what used to be an easy recommendation for me. https://www.theverge.com/... https://twitter.com/... @googlephotos : Starting June 1, 2021, new photos and videos uploaded in High quality will begin counting towards your 15GB of Google Account storage. Learn more here: https://blog.google/... Andy Baio / @waxpancake : I don't blame Google Photos for ending free unlimited storage. I blame them for using it as a bludgeon to drive other services out of business, convince people to delete media to free up space, and THEN end free storage when it's hard for anyone to leave. https://www.theverge.com/... @googlephotos : A remarkable 28 billion new photos and videos are uploaded to Photos every week. To welcome even more of your memories and build Google Photos for the future, we are announcing a change to our storage policy. Learn more here: https://blog.google/... Don MacAskill / @donmacaskill : For five years, we've known this would happen eventually. Not surprised they're doing this now while under @TheJusticeDept investigation. Losing billions of $ to scoop up market share, stifle the competition, then eventually charging money for it? Monopolistic behavior. https://twitter.com/... Casey Newton / @caseynewton : Also seems notable that free Google photo storage helped to drive tons of startups out of this market — Everpix, Loom, Ever, Picturelife. Now that they're gone, and Google is tired of losing money on Photos, the revenue switch flips. Will Oremus' Total Landscaping / @willoremus : Now that Google Photos has crushed smaller competitors with its unmatchable offer of unlimited free storage, it will start charging for storage. (ht @CaseyNewton) https://twitter.com/... Casey Newton / @caseynewton : Google earned $11.2 billion in profits last quarter and uses all your uploaded photos to train its ML algorithms, which offers it other enormous competitive benefits https://twitter.com/... @ow : Google Photos' ‘compressed’ option will soon count towards your storage limit - it's a really great service, so it's a nice change of pace to see Google commit to it by monetizing directly, rather than via advertising. https://twitter.com/... Stephen Shankland / @stshank : Bummer: @googlephotos becomes un-free beyond 15GB of photos & videos (not much, though older photos are grandfathered in). But I'm not kidding when I say it's a healthier relationship with Google to pay for what you use, not getting it subsidized by ads. https://blog.google/... Will Oremus' Total Landscaping / @willoremus : “Break up Big Tech” isn't about punishing big tech firms. It's about meaningfully constraining how they leverage their awesome market power across business lines. I wrote about Google Photos as the latest example of why that's exactly what we need. https://onezero.medium.com/... Max Weinbach / @maxwinebach : I wonder if Apple will try to capitalize on Google Photo's not being free and release Apple Photos on Android with iCloud backup Pat Kiernan / @patkiernan : “Too big” Timeline: - All my photos stored locally on Picasa - Google buys Picasa - Google shuts down Picasa saying its cloud photo system is better and free and unlimited - most competition withers - Google says free storage is no longer free https://www.theverge.com/... Shashikant Kore / @kshashi : “More than 4 trillion photos are stored in Google Photos, and every week 28 billion new photos and videos are uploaded.” https://blog.google/... Stephen Hall / @hallstephenj : The problem here is the people who crossed platforms — iOS users uploading to Google Photos rather than iCloud — specifically because it was free. Not sure I can recommend people (read: tech illiterate family) do that anymore. https://twitter.com/... Casey Liss / @caseyliss : Never trust online photo services. I'm actually not that bothered by this, as I pay for Google Photos, but yet more proof these services — and often Google! — can't be trusted. They'll always pull the rug out from under you. https://www.theverge.com/... John Wu / @topjohnwu : I had always recommended iPhone friends to still use Google Photos for backup cause it's free. I guess there are no real reasons left and they are better paying for iCloud 🤷♂️ Sabrina / @nerdyandquirky : Damn, Google photos storage was the primary thing stopping me from jumping ship to Apple. https://twitter.com/... @herodotusjr : Friendly reminder: “free, infinite storage” is ALWAYS NEITHER. https://twitter.com/... @pranavdixit : @mat @_HarshilShah My whole life is in Google Photos and now I do not know how much more storage I need to buy to last...the rest of my life. Geoffrey A. Fowler / @geoffreyfowler : Classic bait and switch by Google Photos: Get people to upload their entire photo archives with the promise of free storage. Then start charging. https://blog.google/... Dan Masters / @ohmdee : I suspected this was upcoming after hearing about their experiment with paywalling some photo editing features. Now that the service has reached maturity stage, it's not unreasonable to ask people to pay for it—after all, it's got to be stored somewhere, and storage ain't cheap. https://twitter.com/... Jake Wharton / @jakewharton : Even if you pay you can't access original files via the API to remove Google as a single-source of failure. You are forced to to manual takeouts rather than automated backups. Don't start paying, start switching! https://twitter.com/... @joeressington : They've obviously mined enough of our photo data now then. 🙄 https://blog.google/... https://twitter.com/... John ‘BM’ McCann / @jjmccann : If you're wondering how much Google Account storage you're currently using, just use this link. https://one.google.com/storage https://twitter.com/... Mat Honan / @mat : Google Photos has been one of my favorite software tools for many years. (Since it was part of Plus, even.) I completely understand the teeth-gnashing, but I'd much rather pay for it than have the company monetize it in ~other ways~ Jane Manchun Wong / @wongmjane : Why'd I pay for Google that'll empower their data collection model when I can pay the same for other services that doesn't do that? https://twitter.com/... HydroxyCoreyQuinn / @quinnypig : They'll walk back “free unlimited storage” but not “their shitty new app icons.” https://twitter.com/... Jane Manchun Wong / @wongmjane : I've been paying for both Google One and iCloud Storage since switching to iPhone, to try out iCloud Photos There aren't much freemium Google services left that I rely on. I don't even use Gmail, iCloud email, etc. I keep them decoupled. So I can swap service providers easily Casey Newton / @caseynewton : I like paying for software generally, and Google Photos is great software. But it's also case of a giant using its infinite resources to reshape the market to its liking and then seeking rents. Not a lot to get excited about there Jane Manchun Wong / @wongmjane : well Google Photos ending the free unlimited uploads makes thinking of switching to other cloud storage less painful :) https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... Chris motherfucking Messina / @chrismessina : They've trained their ML models to completeness now. The free ride's over folks! Google Photos is no longer needs your samples! Will Recaptcha also be retired? #SingularityNow https://twitter.com/... Dan Seifert / @dcseifert : big yikes! https://twitter.com/...