It feels similar Google Photos has existed a whole lot longer than the five years it's been around. By 2019 the service had attracted over 1 billion users, pregnant that Google's contempo conclusion to stop providing costless unlimited storage is a huge accident to, well, more than than a billion people.

Equally of ane June 2021 any photos or videos you lot upload, or which are uploaded automatically by the app, will count confronting your 15GB of Google storage, or however much storage you have with your Google account.

Only Google's own phones - the Pixel 2 through to 5 - will be exempt from the new rules. If you lot own one, hither's what happens now:

  • Pixel 3a, 4, 4a, five: Yous'll still have unlimited 'Storage saver' uploads, but not Original quality.
  • Pixel 3: Unlimited costless Original quality photos until 1 January 2022. Subsequently that, unlimited Storage saver uploads.
  • Pixel two: Unlimited Storage saver uploads.
  • Original Pixel (2016): Unlimited Original quality uploads until your phone stops working.

For everyone else, you become to keep your uploaded photos and videos, merely anything uploaded on or after 1 June will count against your Google storage.

Google Photos won't delete your photos

Technically, y'all don't demand to exercise anything differently now because photos and videos y'all have on your phone will still be uploaded to Google Photos every bit normal, even after 1 June. Just uploads (backups) will stop when your Google storage is full.

This ways those images and videos will stay on your phone and won't exist backed up in the deject. That may be ok with you, and it doesn't mean you lot can't view those photos in the Google Photos app on your phone and benefit from all the great features such every bit automated tagging, the discipline-based search (such as "cats" or "cars") and the automatic creations such as animations and videos.

Bated from the fact you no longer have an online fill-in of your photos and videos, you won't exist able to admission them in Google Photos from any other device.

I beloved existence able to quickly detect a photograph in web browser version of Google Photos, but one time your storage is full, the spider web version won't update with new photos and videos.

What's Storage saver?

Google has changed the proper noun of 'High quality' uploads to 'Storage saver'.

This is a tacit admission that this choice, which compresses photos and videos and doesn't store the original-quality files (except for photos 16Mp or nether), isn't really loftier quality at all. So y'all may want to rethink your options and start uploading at Original quality.

If you lot don't desire to pay for Google One storage - run into below - then here are the best alternatives to Google Photos.

How can I free up Google Photos storage space?

You can articulate out large files taking up space in your Google storage. Only this is but a temporary fix as that space volition fill again with photos and videos sooner or later.

Google is also rolling out a tool that identifies blurry, dark photos and large videos then yous tin choose which ones to delete to costless upwards infinite.

Don't forget, though, that your 15GB of complimentary storage is used by Gmail and Google Drive every bit well as Google Photos, so you'll need to go along some storage free if you want to keep receiving emails and creating new Google Docs or uploading files.

You'll accept received an electronic mail well-nigh the modify and in it is a link to a personalised approximate of when your gratuitous storage will fill, so it could exist months or years depending upon how many photos and videos you take.

If you missed it, open the Google Photos app and look in the Manage storage section (nether Backup & sync) to run into the same estimate.

What to do when Google photos free storage ends

Become more than Google Photos storage with Google One

Ultimately, if y'all want to continue bankroll upwardly to Google Photos you lot'll take to pay. This isn't as expensive equally yous might fright. The service is called Google One - a sort of combined storage and VPN service.

Upgrading to 100GB is less than £two/$two per calendar month and you tin can have up to 2TB if you need it. Check out our full guide to Google One for more than on the costs and benefits of the service.

If you exercise add more storage to Google Photos, this is a nifty excuse to make certainall of your photos and videos are backed up there, so make sure to check out how to upload every photo & video you take.

What other options exercise I have to back up photos and videos from my camera roll?

If yous prefer, you can sign up to one of the all-time cloud storage services which may offer even more than storage or – amend nevertheless – a lifetime plan which means yous pay once for a set corporeality of storage and there's then no subscription fee to pay after that.

An example is pCloud which offers 500GB for a i-off payment of £175 or 2TB for £350. Both are 65% discounts on the normal prices.

The pCloud app for Android and iOS offers automatic backups of your camera roll likewise, so you won't have to exercise annihilation – but similar Google Photos.

Obviously you lot lose the corking features of Google Photos mentioned earlier -  plus the photos and video editing tools. Which is why you might adopt to pay for Google One storage instead.

Unfortunately, there are no complimentary services which are equivalent alternatives to Google Photos. If you have a NAS drive, yous can probably use it to back up your photographic camera whorl. As for online services, iCloud isn't free and neither is Flickr (which now limits free users to 1000 photos).

For more details on those, encounter our roundup of the best alternatives to Google Photos.

If you decide to move to a new storage solution, don't worry - there'due south an like shooting fish in a barrel way to download all your photos and videos from Google Photos in one become, so that you lot tin can re-upload them to your new backup.

Nosotros discussed the changes in our weekly podcast Fast Charge, which you lot tin can watch right here:

Related articles for further reading

  • How to stop Google Photos backing up photos
  • Facebook at present lets you transfer your photos and videos to Google Photos
  • How to movement photos to your new phone