Google Photos to End Unlimited Storage
Starting June 1, 2021, any new photos and videos you upload will count toward the free 15 GB of storage that comes with every Google Account or the additional storage you’ve purchased as a Google One member.
When Google Photos launched in 2015, the tech giant had originally offered users the ability to upload an unlimited amount of photos at “high quality.”
Notably, photos taken with Pixel phones will remain exempt from storage limits, albeit in “high quality” mode. Around the same time last year, Google ended unlimited full-quality photo backups.
Also seems notable that free Google photo storage helped to drive tons of startups out of this market — Everpix, Loom, Ever, Picturelife. Now that they’re gone, and Google is tired of losing money on Photos, the revenue switch flips.
Previously:
Update (2020-11-17): Sean Hollister:
While the company said yesterday that previous Pixel phones could still upload those photos for free after Google axes unlimited storage on June 1st, 2021, Google confirmed to us that any future Pixels you buy will not come with those free uploads.
That “five years” link makes clear that “free and unlimited” was a big part of the appeal of Google Photos all along. And it’s not really a 5-year-old product — Google bought Picasa back in 2004, 16 years ago, and they’ve been giving away some version of free hosted photo storage ever since. And they’ve surely lost billions of dollars doing so.
Update (2020-12-08): Don MacAskill:
We have no plans to add a 2TB limit. Or any limit. Our Flickr Pros pay us, we make money when they do, and everyone is happy. We also don’t do evil things with their photos.
