Google Photos free unlimited storage ends soon, here’s what you should do

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Do you have an Android smartphone? If yes, then your phone will also have Google Photos. This cloud-powered app from Google regularly backs up photos from your phone’s gallery.

From June 1 this year, Google will start charging for storage if users’ photo and video uploads exceed more than 15GB. The 15GB free storage will now count data from all its services such as Gmail, Drive, Photos, and other Google- linked apps.

However,  only the photos which will be uploaded after the given date will be charged if it will be above your free storage limit of 15GB.  Also, if you are a Pixel smartphone user, you will only be exempted from this policy change but will be able to upload “high quality” photos without any charges.

What are the options?

Offline backup: If you have a backup of more than 15 GB in Google Photos, you have to transfer it to the storage of a laptop or phone. To back up photos on your laptop, go to photos.google.com and log in to your Google account. There you will find the download option. You can also download all the pictures at once and take them in the form of a zip file.

Online backup: If you want to save on the cloud, there are few alternative options, but they also come with storage data. Dropbox and Microsoft are cloud services that users can try out for uploading.

However, dropbox offers only 2GB to a single user as part of its free basic personal plan. Users will have to buy storage if they wish to store more content on this cloud service and Microsoft OneDrive offers 5GB gree storage, and if users want more space, they can buy the 100GB plan for Rs 140 per month.

Google’s offer: The third option is to increase your cloud storage capacity of your google account. For which, you have to take Google One subscription that starts from the base 100GB plan to 30TB of cloud storage. There are three paid plans to pick between. Each includes an increased storage allowance, which applies across all Google products – including Google Drive.

The plan starts with the base 100GB option where customers can either spend Rs 149 monthly or Rs 1,499 annually. Then, the 200GB plan costs Rs 219 per month and Rs 2,199 per year, and the 2TB plan is available at Rs 749 per month and Rs 7,500 per year.