The day is almost here when everyone (except some Pixel users) will have to say goodbye to unlimited High Quality storage for their Google Photos. Starting June 1, we’ll have to live with the new storage policy change where any new photos and videos you will back up will count towards your 15GB Google Account free storage. Before we say goodbye (unless you subscribe to Google One), Google is giving us some tools to help us out in the transition.
Google also gave some reminders about what will happen by next week, in case you’ve forgotten. Any of the photos or videos that you backed up on the Photos cloud before June 1, 2021, will be safe and not count toward your storage. Only those uploaded starting June 1 will be considered as part of the count. And they will also stop calling it High Quality and will be renaming it to Storage Saver which is pretty apt by then.
They are also giving us a tool that can be useful for deleting unnecessary photos without having to go through your whole stash of photos and videos. It will surface content like blurry photos, screenshots, and large videos and suggest that you delete them so you can get the most out of your free storage. Of course, the ideal solution would be for you to purchase more storage through Google One, but in case you don’t want to, this tool will come in handy.
Google will also give you a personalized estimate of how long before you use up all your storage. This is based on how frequently you back up and store content to your Google Account. When your storage is nearing 15GB, you’ll get a notification in the app and through email. In case you don’t see any notification, it may be because you’re not uploading regularly or you are too close to your storage limit, or your account is through work, school, family, or another group.
But in case you do decide to upgrade to a paying subscription, Google One plans start at $1.99 per month (or $19.99/year) for 100GB, $2.99 per month (or $29.99/year) for 200GB, or $9.99 per month (or $99.99/year) for 2TB. You can also share your storage plan with other family members.
