Google has made a big change to its free unlimited photo storage. It’s no longer free as of June 1.
Google announced that starting June 1, high-quality and express-quality content will be counted against your Google account storage limit.
If you’ve hit the limit you can either subscribe to Google One for a fee or use your account’s tools to remove photos and videos.
But keep in mind, any photos or videos that you’ve backed up before June 1 won’t count against your storage.
Original quality photos will do so, as they have in the past as will photos that were backed up in original quality then compressed to storage saver quality, which was called high quality if they were compressed after June 1.
For more on the changes, click here.
So what does all this mean?
If you opt not to sign up for Google One, almost everything that you store in your Google account, including photos, email and documents, will count against your 15GB free storage, INC reported.
If you don’t want to max out your storage quickly, PC World says check your settings and make sure that photos aren’t automatically sent to Google as a backup.
You can also opt for a different storage option like Shutterfly or Amazon Prime, INC reported. Prime offers free photo storage for members as well as 5GB of video storage, USA Today reported.
You can also check out Dropbox, Microsoft 365 and Apple’s iCloud.
Of course, you can just wait until you hit the limit and free up space when needed. USA Today reported that you’ll be warned when you get close to hitting maximum storage levels.
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