Google launched Google Photos nearly five years ago. Some people claimed that it’s another Photo managing app, and not that big of a deal, but a key takeaway from the announcement was Google’s promise of storing your photos in the cloud ‘forever’.
But that’s changing from June 2021. Starting June 1, 2021, any new photo or video uploaded to Google Photos will count against the free 15GB allotted to your account. Google says millions of people rely on Google Photos’ automatic backup feature around the world, with more than 4 trillion photos uploaded till date, and 28 billion new photos and videos being uploaded every week.
We know this is a big shift and may come as a surprise, so we wanted to let you know well in advance
Google Blog
Also Read: Facebook’s Data Transfer Lets Users Transfer Media to Google Photos
Existing Photos and Videos Uploaded to Google Photos are Exempted from this change
Google says any photo or video uploaded before 1st June 2021 will not count against the 15GB free storage. Go and backup those 20GBs folder right away!
Obviously, this change won’t affect you if you upload photos in Original quality. Also, if you have a Pixel 1-5, the change won’t affect you and Google will continue to support High (or Original) photo backup for these devices.