We launched Google Photos more than five years ago and since then, it’s become more than just an app to manage your photos. It’s become a place you go when you feel nostalgic and want to reminisce. Today, Google Photos is the home for more than 4 trillion photos and videos, including yours, and a remarkable 28 billion new photos and videos are uploaded every week. In order to welcome even more of your memories and build Google Photos for the future, we are announcing a change to our storage policy. Starting June 1, 2021, all new photos and videos backed up in High quality will count toward the free 15 GB of storage that comes with your Google Account or any additional storage you may have purchased, the same way other Google services like Google Drive and Gmail already do.
All photos and videos you back up in High quality before June 1, 2021 are exempt from this change and will not count toward your Google Account storage. This includes all of your existing content uploaded in High quality.
We don’t take this decision lightly and we acknowledge that this is a big shift, so wanted to let you know well in advance and give you resources to help you navigate this change.
It stinks but six months is enough time to come up with a Plan B. As an iPhone/iPad house that also uses Office 365 I’m sad to say Google is going to be the odd man out for us. If they had like a $3 plan for 1TB I’d probably do it, but $10 for 2TB is more than I need. At that rate a local backup will pay for itself in a year, and be a better complement to my existing OneDrive and iCloud backups. But I’ll miss the Google Photos app for its search. Ah well, all good things must come to an end.
I have to admit, I’ve never used it - mainly because I do most of my photography in RAW format, which can’t be stored on Google Photos for free anyway.
Yeah, I think you’re not the target market for Google Photos
That said, I do have my DSLR stuff in there along with older point and shoot photos and even a bunch of really old scanned images from my family-- many going back a decade or more, and it is great when you want to quickly find a specific photo to show someone standing next to you or share it with someone. Or over the holidays I can do a search for my wife and her parents, and in a few seconds I can show her brother a curated album that he’ll enjoy. Immediately after that I can do a search for me and the kids or my siblings and hand a curated album to someone in my family. Having a drink with two old friends you haven’t seen in a while? Search for their names and in seconds you can pull up photos from across the years for a quick laugh. That is the thing I’ll have to find a replacement for.
I have all my stuff on HiDrive and OneDrive (I’m in the middle of transitioning away from OneDrive to HiDrive, as the failure of Privacy Shield means that storing them on OneDrive (or Google Drive etc.) is untenable.
I too pay for 100GB of Google Drive since I also store RAW.
I decided to also add Amazon photos to my arsenal (included with my Prime subscription) so we’ll see how that works. While I know setting up my own NAS with some form of cloud backup is the preferred way to do this, the cloud services are just more convenient for me.
So whatever you have stored already doesn’t count towards the 15 gig, so it will take a while to fill it up.
I have two workflows, proper DSLR pics and snaps with the phone, which is Google Photos and stored there. I can probably export them every 6 months or so. Or just buy a Pixel.
Months ago, I started a photo thread, basically contrasting Google Photos vs Apple Photos. When I saw that Google was going to change the photos parameters yesterday, I thought I would just go all in on Apple. But here’s my problem with that. There seems to be a disconnect between the Mac and iOS. I can name a photo on the Mac, but that does not carry over to iOS. On YouTube, Gary from MacMost basically just relies on years and days, and doesn’t use other sorting methods. Seems a bit low tech for a high tech operation…
To me, this non-communication between a Mac, and an iPad or iPhone seems to be a relatively big flaw for iCloud Photos. My 12 ProMax is due here tomorrow, with its super duper camera, but finding the super duper photos on the app months or years down the road seems like it will be a crap shoot.
Google has a better search for photos, facial recognition is better, and info seems to pass seamlessly between what I see on the computer, and what I see on my iOS machines.
It just seems ridiculous that I have to go outside the Apple ecosystem to get a more serviceable photo app. I don’t do anything fancy with my photos. I largely hit the auto edit, and let it go at that.
Am I still missing something? Am I overthinking this?
I figure this a good thread to ask on. If dumping Google Photo’s to move elsewhere, where do you recommend? I’m quite happy with Google Photo’s as I can quickly make and share an album, It auto backs up my photo’s and works on all my devices. Mac, Windows 10, & IOS 14. If I move somewhere It must be capable of being accessed in a web browser and have a dedicated app for IOS.
Not an answer for you but that’s why I asked what’s the best value in cloud storage.
I think Leo has said iDrive has apps for android, IOS, Mac, and Windows.
5TB for ~ $70/year sounds good, if the backup apps work.
I’m happy with Strato HiDrive. No ties to the US, so no GDPR headaches on that front. It costs about the same as OneDrive (although I got it through their Birthday offer (10 years of HiDrive, I believe), 1€ set-up charge for 1TB for 12 months).
It also has access through web, git, svn, ftp and a bunch of other methods, so you can use the storage for pretty much anything.
I figure this a good thread to ask on. If dumping Google Photo’s to move elsewhere, where do you recommend? I’m quite happy with Google Photo’s as I can quickly make and share an album, It auto backs up my photo’s and works on all my devices. Mac, Windows 10, & IOS 14. If I move somewhere It must be capable of being accessed in a web browser and have a dedicated app for IOS.
Agreed, any tips for photo search/album management across phones and web? I’ve got lots of OneDrive cloud storage, my own backed-up storage at home etc so have no problem where to store them - it’s what app to use on the phone. Or do people just go back to tagging images and using folders to organise pics?
Amazon Photos still says ‘unlimited, full-resolution photo storage included with Prime’. I thought they were stopping that?
Starting June 1, 2021, all new photos and videos backed up in High quality will count toward the free 15 GB of storage that comes with your Google Account or any additional storage you may have purchased, the same way other Google services like Google Drive and Gmail already do.