Google Photos Free Unlimited Storage will end on June 1, 2021 – What Should You do?

Starting from June 2021, your photos will count toward your 15GB of free storage

After over five years of offering “Free Unlimited Storage” for “High Quality” photos and videos, Google has decided to end the option to fulfil the “growing demand for storage”. Users will be charged for the storage exceeding free 15GB quota. The change comes along with an even greater policy change in Google Drive, that will count Google Docs, Sheets, Slides and Forms in the same free quota.

Google has also introduced a policy for accounts that are inactive or over storage limit. If an account is inactive for two years in any of the services above, its content in the respective service will be deleted. Just like that, if an account is over its storage limit for two years, Google may delete its content across Gmail, Drive and Photos.

Google also has an “Original Quality” option that already counts your content towards free 15GB storage. However, the “High Quality” uses to compress your photos and videos to give you free unlimited storage. If Google takes the free unlimited storage away, you may think about switching your cloud partner.

Also, note that the “High Quality” option will stay after June 1 with all its compressing features but it will start counting towards 15GB.

Pixel smartphone owners will be able using the “High Quality” option for free after June 1 without counting towards their maximum free quota. However, they will lose the original Pixel-deal of unlimited storage with “Original Quality” option.

Users will a new tool in the Photos app to review the photos and videos they might want to delete or prefer to keep. The tool categorises dark or blurry photos or large videos to help you review them and delete them instantly.

What should you do?

Well, you can’t do anything but wait for the date to come and keep backing up your photos and videos as you normally do. The “Free Unlimited Storage” will stay there in your Google Photos until June 1st, 2021. After that, your future photos and videos will start counting toward your free 15GB storage quota. Afterwards, once you reach your quota, you will need to buy Google One plan starting from PKR 209/month (or PKR 175/month if prepay annually) for 100GB storage.

But you still do not need to worry about losing your free storage so quickly. Google has estimated that over 80% of users should still be able to store around three more years worth of photos and videos with their free 15GB of storage in the same “High Quality” storage option. Users will be notified when they reach near 15GB of free quota.

What do you think about this change by Google? Sure you won’t welcome it but do tell us how do you feel about it in the comments section below.

For more details, you must check the sources below.