Google ending unlimited free photo storage from June 2021

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surfisup1000

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#279845 12-Nov-2020 13:22

Received this in the email today....

Starting June 1, 2021, all new photos and videos backed up in High quality will count toward the free 15 GB of storage that comes with your Google Account or any additional storage you may have purchased, the same way other Google services like Google Drive and Gmail already do.
All photos and videos you back up in High quality before June 1, 2021 are exempt from this change and will not count toward your Google Account storage. This includes all of your existing content uploaded in High quality.

The weight of 4 trillion photos and 28 billion new ones each week must have got to them. I'm amazed at the ability of the internet infrastructure to cope with such volumes of information.

I'm going to make sure my entire photo collection is uploaded before then. Even then, how long will google tolerate the 4 trillion photos and video already occupying their storage systems?

I've been looking at some kind of home based cloud system, such as mycloud.

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#2602670 12-Nov-2020 13:47

*Flips over table*

antoniosk

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#2602683 12-Nov-2020 13:56

Shocked I tell you.

I am so shocked.

No i'm not, and I don't trust google to not decide to just abandon the idea and close the service abruptly.

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Antoniosk

davidcole

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#2602721 12-Nov-2020 14:22

Yeah recently started getting a bit concerned about google having all my shiz.....so stopped uploading to google photos and turned off facial recognition. THen in place running nextcloud (to get photos to server at home) and a mix of Plex and an app called Photoprisim (https://github.com/photoprism/photoprism) for gallery. They both do rudimentary tagging.....but am trying to get XnViewMp into my workflow with sidecar XMP files for categorisation and albums etc to be read on by photoprisim.

Google photos was much easier....and maybe a few other projects will start up to replicate google photos I assume.

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nickb800

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#2602761 12-Nov-2020 15:26

While I do share concerns about google having all my stuff, it's extremely convenient so I'm sticking with it. Auto backup from phone, shared library with my partner, chromecast displaying photos of the kid (automatically updated with new photos based on facial recognition).

100GB storage for $1.99 per month is covered by doing the odd google rewards survey.

PolicyGuy

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#2602812 12-Nov-2020 16:12

nickb800: While I do share concerns about google having all my stuff, it's extremely convenient so I'm sticking with it. Auto backup from phone, shared library with my partner, chromecast displaying photos of the kid (automatically updated with new photos based on facial recognition).

100GB storage for $1.99 per month is covered by doing the odd google rewards survey.

Insidious, isn't it

MikeB4

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#2602957 12-Nov-2020 18:11

I received the same today but I am in the process of moving away from google completely. I am waiting for my Photos takeout to complete.

Here is a crazy notion, lets give peace a chance.

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ech3lon

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#2602975 12-Nov-2020 19:06

lNomNoml:
*Flips over table*

(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

Dynamic

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#2602979 12-Nov-2020 19:10

I assume this means they have perfected their facial recognition tech now and no longer need to use your photos to train their systems? 😱

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SirHumphreyAppleby

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#2602990 12-Nov-2020 19:33

Not concerned about photo storage, but I note the G Suite page is now listing a 2TB limit per user instead of unlimited if you have five or more users (1TB each for fewer users).

EDIT: My G Suite account also no longer explicitly mentions unlimited storage.

hio77

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#2603023 12-Nov-2020 20:44

https://killedbygoogle.com/ needs another addition it seems.

#include <std_disclaimer>

Any comments made are personal opinion and do not reflect directly on the position my current or past employers may have.

Linuxluver

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#2603052 12-Nov-2020 22:43

This was inevitable. I own a DS214Play Synology NAS with 2 x 4TB RAID discs.....and use the DS Photo app to upload my photos from my phone on the fly.....wherever I may be. The house now has 900mbps fibre....and the NAS is on 1Gb ethernet to my router.

I also use Google Photos / Drive and pay for 2TB of storage....and upload all images in "original" size anyway......so, really, this change doesn't affect me. But one day my 2TB will run out and there will be a cull......and the NAS (or its successor) will win "prime repository' status.

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Linuxluver

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#2603054 12-Nov-2020 22:47

antoniosk:

Shocked I tell you.

I am so shocked.

No i'm not, and I don't trust google to not decide to just abandon the idea and close the service abruptly.

Samsung is the worst for that......and they wonder why no one uses their cloud services. Once you make one of them unreliable, users will avoid all of them.

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mattwnz

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#2603060 13-Nov-2020 00:03

Google is well known for changing things for the worse, and removing services. If you have a website and use google maps on it, it used to be completely free. But now need people to signup to a paid service, but give people a set amount of credits, so many people won't be charged. But I can see them eventually charging all users.

So there is no surprise here that they are going to change google photos. These weren't even high resolution images that they were saving. I understand they already charge if you want full resolution images saved, so the versions they were saving weren't really a good image backup option anyway. The one thing I have found with cloud computing, is that it often starts of free of cheap to get people hooked on them, and then they start to charge or prices increase.