No more unlimited free storage for Google Photos

For years, Google has offered its users unlimited storage to back up photos to the cloud. Those who saved their photos in the high quality compressed format could upload as many photos as they wanted to the cloud. Now it’s over. As Google explains via the blog, 4.3 million GB of data is stored in Gmail, Drive and Photos every day and to date 4 billion photos are backed up to Google Photos, to which 28 billion new photos are added. and videos every week.

That is why Google is introducing new archiving rules on June 1, 2021. From this date on, all newly uploaded photos will be credited to the 15GB of free storage that Google offers with each account and which is used by Gmail, Google Drive and Photos. If you want to save data beyond this 15GB, you need to purchase a paid Google One storage plan. For private customers, 100 GB currently costs 2 francs, 200 GB is available for 3 francs and 2 TB for 10 francs.

Google says that high-quality photos and videos that have already been uploaded are excluded from editing, that is, photos and videos uploaded before June 1, 2021 do not count towards the 15GB quid. And those who have already saved their photos in original quality to Google Cloud won’t be affected by the change, because photos in original quality have already been counted towards 15GB.

However, any new Docs, Sheets or Forms documents as well as Drawings and Jamboard files are also affected by the change, as Google explains in a second blog post. They will also be counted towards free storage starting June 1, 2021. Pre-uploaded files are not charged on the quota until they are modified.

And: again from June 1, 2021, Google will delete the content of Google accounts that have been inactive for more than 24 months. Additionally, Google warns users who have stored data beyond the free storage limit for more than two years that this data will also be deleted. (mw)