No More Unlimited Photo Storage, UNLESS You Own a Google Pixel

If you’re using Google Photos to store your images, you might need to check how much space you have left. Google will soon be changing their storage policies for free accounts. Right now, Google offers 15GB of free storage for each account, with emails and files stored in Google Drive counting against the 15GB. Photos and videos, however, are currently free to store as long as they’re under 16MP or if you let Google degrade the quality.

Starting from 1 June 2021, any photos uploaded to Google’s storage servers will count against the 15GB. Before that though, any images uploaded now in high quality and not original quality will not count against the 15GB of free storage.

In addition, another new policy Google is implementing is that if a user is inactive in any of Google’s offerings, such as Drive, Gmail, Photos or others, the content stored there might be deleted after 24 months of inactivity.

The user will be notified multiple times before Google attempts to delete any content, and Google states: “The simplest way to keep your account active is to periodically visit Gmail, Drive or Photos on the web or mobile, while signed in and connected to the internet.”

If you’re a Google Pixel owner though, rest assured. Photos and videos uploaded from a Pixel device will be exempt from this change, as long as they’re uploaded in High quality and not Original quality.

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Written by Cheryl Tan