Google photos.. not free
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Discussion

EdT

Original Poster:

5,239 posts

314 months

Wednesday 11th November 2020
quotequote all
Bloody knew this would happen. From June next year the current free photo service (unlimited storage when uploading at'high' quality) won't be free any more. Meh.

The_Jackal

4,854 posts

227 months

Wednesday 11th November 2020
quotequote all
Yeah you'll get a 15Gb allocation from June. Everything uploaded before then wont count towards it.
Like everyone else they are pushing towards a Google One subscription. It was nice while it lasted.

paulrockliffe

16,621 posts

257 months

Wednesday 11th November 2020
quotequote all
The subscription is like £1.50 a month.

IanJ9375

1,638 posts

246 months

Wednesday 11th November 2020
quotequote all
EdT said:
Bloody knew this would happen. From June next year the current free photo service (unlimited storage when uploading at'high' quality) won't be free any more. Meh.
Still free on a Pixel phone though it seems - guess it makes sense to keep it as a bonus for buying their phone

https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/11/11/google-ph...

okenemem

1,493 posts

224 months

Thursday 12th November 2020
quotequote all
ffs

TimmyMallett

3,198 posts

142 months

Thursday 12th November 2020
quotequote all
I pay for the 100GB storage @ £1.50 a month. It's a decent price for the use I get from it and the fact that I have all my treasured pictures of family etc backed up somewhere else than on a HDD in my house. Plus you can use it for instant sharing/hosting/printing.

alorotom

12,788 posts

217 months

Thursday 12th November 2020
quotequote all
im also a tier 1 (100gb) subscriber ... certainly worth it considering I got a home mini for free from them when they were dishing them out to any subscriber at the beginning of the year which is worth more than I had paid in subs at the time

AJB88

15,905 posts

201 months

Thursday 12th November 2020
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Pixel owners will keep it but only on current Pixel devices not new ones.

cobra kid

5,600 posts

270 months

Thursday 12th November 2020
quotequote all
paulrockliffe said:
The subscription is like £1.50 a month.
It's like £1.50? what is it actually?

tejr

3,502 posts

194 months

Thursday 12th November 2020
quotequote all
I have about 200GB of photos, so the only suitable Google plan is the 2TB one. But I opted for a Microsoft365 personal plan instead. £60 a year (as opposed to £80), 1TB of storage + Office licenses bundled in. Not a bank breaking amount considering the office licenses are bundled in.

AJB88

15,905 posts

201 months

Thursday 12th November 2020
quotequote all
cobra kid said:
It's like £1.50? what is it actually?
£1.59 a month for 100gb.

TimmyMallett

3,198 posts

142 months

Thursday 12th November 2020
quotequote all
AJB88 said:
£1.59 a month for 100gb.
You're doing it wrong.

'It's literally £1.59'

cobra kid

5,600 posts

270 months

Thursday 12th November 2020
quotequote all
TimmyMallett said:
You're doing it wrong.

'It's literally £1.59'
Thank you.

Condi

20,480 posts

201 months

Thursday 12th November 2020
quotequote all
tejr said:
I have about 200GB of photos, so the only suitable Google plan is the 2TB one. But I opted for a Microsoft365 personal plan instead. £60 a year (as opposed to £80), 1TB of storage + Office licenses bundled in. Not a bank breaking amount considering the office licenses are bundled in.
If you upload them as "high quality" instead of "original quality" then your 200BG of photos will look more like 20GB, possibly even less. Their compression algorithm is very very good and anything you upload now, ahead of June 2021 is free forever anyway, so only affects any new photos you want to store.

tejr

3,502 posts

194 months

Thursday 12th November 2020
quotequote all
Condi said:
tejr said:
I have about 200GB of photos, so the only suitable Google plan is the 2TB one. But I opted for a Microsoft365 personal plan instead. £60 a year (as opposed to £80), 1TB of storage + Office licenses bundled in. Not a bank breaking amount considering the office licenses are bundled in.
If you upload them as "high quality" instead of "original quality" then your 200BG of photos will look more like 20GB, possibly even less. Their compression algorithm is very very good and anything you upload now, ahead of June 2021 is free forever anyway, so only affects any new photos you want to store.
Probably not too far off tbh. I have photo backups in photos going back to 2014, and I'm only using around 2GB.

I've never gotten used to the segregation of photos and google drive though. I think OneDrive fits my needs better. Though Photos has a much nicer picture search facility which I had totally forgotten about till now!

paulrockliffe

16,621 posts

257 months

Thursday 12th November 2020
quotequote all
AJB88 said:
cobra kid said:
It's like £1.50? what is it actually?
£1.59 a month for 100gb.
Which is like £1.50.

AJB88

15,905 posts

201 months

Thursday 12th November 2020
quotequote all
TimmyMallett said:
You're doing it wrong.

'It's literally £1.59'
its less if you pay for the year up front

cobra kid

5,600 posts

270 months

Thursday 12th November 2020
quotequote all
paulrockliffe said:
Which is like £1.50.
So why not say £1.59?

Anyway.....

paulrockliffe

16,621 posts

257 months

Thursday 12th November 2020
quotequote all
cobra kid said:
paulrockliffe said:
Which is like £1.50.
So why not say £1.59?

Anyway.....
Because I didn't know exactly what it was and I didn't think the required level of accuracy warranted looking it up.

Corso Marche

1,901 posts

231 months

Friday 13th November 2020
quotequote all
I think it's important to note here that G Photos is more than just a storage solution. Which is why it still makes sense to a lot of people.
It has editing tools, powerful search options, albums/cataloguing for organisation, sharing features, collaboration tools, archiving tools, utilities to create photo animations, collages, movies from photos, and an option to create and order (paid for) printed photo books.

It still makes sense for the likes of myself when it offers all of the above.
There are pics in my Photos account which have been auto backed up since 2011 when I bought my first Nexus phone and I've only used Nexus and Pixel phones ever since. I can't remember what the earlier photo backup service was called but when Photos was launched everything was automatically transferred over at the time. The earliest photos I've uploaded from my camera go back to 2003 and it's handy having them catalogued and searchable.

We're also a household which solely uses G Suite / Workplace for both personal and work needs, so we've had Drive storage since making the full time switch in 2015. That storage has so far cost nothing because when buying a Chromebook in the past you received 2 years of 100GB Drive storage for free. So by registering a few different accounts on a few different machines we purchased and using shared folders we've not had to pay anything for Drive yet. Although I noticed in September when I last registered my main account to one of the other CB's that the storage offer is now only 12months as opposed to 2 years.
With the free storage of photos from my Google Phones, and the free storage from the Chromebooks it's been a breeze thus far.
However, the thing is that Google also announced changes to their suite of apps too. Previously any files/documents created in their apps and stored on Drive didn't count against your storage. (Unlike with One Drive where every file occupies storage). This is now also changing next year, and files created in Docs, Sheets, Slides, etc will now count against your storage.
This is where it will get interesting for me. I'll be watching with intrigue as to how quickly the combination of both Photo storage and user docs begin to accumulate, as currently with the free storage option I've no idea how much space my phone photos and user created docs actually occupy!