New Delhi: It’s the end of an era, as Google announced a new storage policy on Wednesday, that will forever change how you store data on the platform. Google Photos in a blog post announced that it will no longer offer unlimited free storage for your “high quality” photos from next year. So, starting on June 1, 2021, new photo and video uploads will count towards the 15GB of free storage included with every Google Account.
Do you need to worry?
However, you don’t need to worry right away because photos and videos backed up before June 1, 2021 will still be considered free and exempt from the storage limit. Only photos uploaded after June 1st will begin counting against the cap.
Additionally, the company says that “over 80 percent of you should still be able to store roughly three more years worth of memories with your free 15 GB of storage.”
This change will not take effect for six months, so you won’t need to change how you use Photos or take any action at this time. After June 1, 2021 over 80% of you should still be able to store roughly three more years worth of memories with your free 15 GB of storage.
— Google Photos (@googlephotos) November 11, 2020
Meanwhile, Google is building two tools to help you manage storage. The company said that it will send alerts when you begin to approach that cap, It will also let you manage your backed up photos and videos and pick what you want to keep and what you want to delete. This tool will automatically highlight content such as dark or blurry photos , screenshots, large videos that you may no longer to keep in your phone.
More so, you can verify your backup quality at any time in the Photos app by going to back up and sync in Settings. Or you can just click here to estimate how long your storage will last. Google is also going to show a “personalized estimate” which will estimates each user’s average uploads over time to guess how much longer they’ll be able to use their current tier.
To help you understand how this impacts you personally, you can see an estimate for how long your storage may last. https://t.co/t6XsEjWc46 pic.twitter.com/1zXR9it6qa
— Google Photos (@googlephotos) November 11, 2020
But what will happen after the 15GB data is used up?
Once your 15 GB has been used up, you will have the choice to subscribe to one of the Google One plans if you plan to keep uploading. It starts at $1.99 / month for 100GB and has tiers going through 200GB ($2.99 / month), 2TB ($9.99 / month), and all the way up to 30TB ($149.99 / month).
However, if you are a Pixel owner, there is some good news for you! Pixel owners will still be able to upload high-quality (not original) photos for free after June 1st without those images counting against their cap.