distance five years Offering unlimited free backups of “high quality” photos, Google Photos will start charging storage fees as soon as you use more than 15 cartridges on the account. The change will happen on June 1, 2021, and it comes with other Google Drive policy changes like Google Workspace documents and spreadsheets account against the same maximum. Google is also introducing a new policy to delete data from inactive accounts that have not been signed in for at least two years.
All photos and documents will be uploaded before June 1 Not You can count on this 15GB limit, so you have plenty of time to decide whether to still use Google Photos or switch to another cloud storage provider for your photos. Only pictures have been uploaded distance June 1st will start counting against the maximum.
Google already calculates uploads of photos in “original quality” against the Google Photos storage limit. However, the unlimited backup of your “HD” photos and videos (which is done automatically Compact for more efficient storage) Also removes one of the service’s biggest selling points. It was the photo service where you didn’t have to worry about how much storage you had.
As a side note, Pixel owners will still be able to download high-quality (not original) images for free after June 1st without those photos being counted against the maximum. It’s not as good as Pixel’s original deal for unlimited original quality, but it’s a small bonus for the few people who buy Google devices.
Google points out that it provides the most free storage space than others – you get 15 GB instead of the frivolous 5 GB iCloud gives you from Apple – and also claims that 80 percent of Google Photos users will not reach the 15 GB limit for three years over the least.
The company will send alerts and warnings when it begins to approach this limit. Google is also putting in place new storage management tools in Google Photos, including a tool that makes it easy to find and delete photos you might not want anyway, like blurry photos or screenshots.
Google will also show a more helpful “custom estimate” of how long a storage layer lasts in terms of time instead of gigabytes. Estimates average uploads per user over time to guess how long they will be able to use their current level.
Why the change? One possibility is that it’s part of a bigger push to get more people to sign up for Google One storage. The service now also includes a free VPN for Android at some higher levels, and many Google products seem to be compatible with Google One. Google’s explanation in a simpler brief interview: There are actually an almost unintelligible number of photos and videos uploaded to Google Photos, and the service has to be sustainable. This is the essence if you read between the lines of her blog post:
Today, more than 4 trillion photos are stored in Google Photos, and 28 billion new photos and videos are uploaded every week. Since so many of you rely on Google Photos to store your memories, it is important that it is not only a great product, but also continues to fulfill your needs in the long run. In order to welcome more of your memories and build Google images for the future, we are changing the unlimited high quality storage policy.
Google One pricing Does not change. It starts at $ 1.99 per month for 100 GB and has levels up to 200 GB ($ 2.99 per month), 2 TB ($ 9.99 per month), and up to 30 TB ($ 149.99 per month).
Along with photos, your Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings, Forms, and Jamboard files will also start calculating storage limits. Google says the reason for this is “to make our policies more in line with industry standards”. (This puts an end to some pretty smart hacks like This file that converts files to Google Docs with a binary converter.)
As for the inactive account policy, it seems fairly reasonable: if you haven’t touched your Google account for two years and have not responded in any way to the multiple warnings and notifications that Google sends you, the company may delete the data from your account. Account. Here’s how Google explains it:
If you have been inactive in one or more of these services for two years (24 months), Google may delete the content in the product (s) in which you are inactive. […] Likewise, if you exceed the two-year storage limit, Google may delete your content via Gmail, Drive, and Photos.
We will notify you multiple times before we attempt to remove any content so that you have high chances of taking action. The simplest way to keep your account active is to periodically visit Gmail, Drive, or Photos on the web or mobile, while logged in and connected to the Internet.
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