Beginning June 1, Google Photos will count all uploaded images and videos against most users' free 15GB storage. Users exceeding this will have to purchase a Google One cloud subscription.
The groundwork for the transition was laid in November when Google Photos head David Leib tweeted the reason for the strategic change.
According to Lieb, offering fully free backups costs the company a lot. As a result, Google had no choice but to bear the primary cost of operating the service and acknowledge the primary benefit of online storage
There is one exception: users of Google Pixel phones (from the Google Pixel 2 to the Google Pixel 5) can continue to receive free unlimited storage for high-quality images. Similarly, Pixel (2016) owners can keep their unrestricted storage space for original quality photos.
Users who rely on Google Photos to upload their device's content do not need to be concerned about existing files. Existing high-quality content would be excluded from the imminent storage restrictions. Only after the specified date will any new uploads begin to tick the Google account storage meter.
If you manually back up your images and videos to the service, go through your library again and upload any important content before June 1. Anything you do on or after June 1 will begin to add to the space in your allocated 15GB storage quota.
Users will also gain access to a new feature that will serve as a photo and video management tool starting June 1. The AI tool will examine your saved files and recommend whether you can delete fuzzy images or video clips that are too large to fit within the 15GB free cap.
Google's cloud service starts at $2 a month for 100GB of space, and there's also a 200GB and a 2TB tier that costs $3 and $10 a month, respectively.
