Google Photos Is No Longer Free, This Is An Alternative To Save Photos

JAKARTA - Starting today, June 1, 2021, Google Photos will no longer provide free services for storing photos and videos to its users. Especially for those who have crossed the 15GB storage limit.

In fact, this is Google's way of monetizing or benefiting from the photo and video storage service. Later, if users need more space, then they must subscribe to the Google One service.

It is known, Google Photos is a backup cloud storage (cloud storage) for various photos taken by users from the user's Android phone.

Even though Google has a 15GB storage limit for high-resolution images and videos, the tech giant has no problem letting users send photos from smartphones to online servers for free.

These kinds of services help make Google Photos one of the most popular photo management tools available. How not, Google Photo storage is considered practical because users can sort files based on favorite photos and other special albums.

Other features offered can also archive photos to keep certain photos or videos private, so photos can be hidden from the main page without having to delete them.

For information, the Google One package is priced starting at 2 US dollars a month or the equivalent of Rp. 28,550 for users in the United States (US) with 100GB of storage and various other features.

However, if you don't want to spend money just to subscribe to Google One, you can try other free photo storage applications such as the following quoted from Tom's Guide, Tuesday, June 1st.

Flickr has been operating for over 16 years and remains one of the most trusted cloud-based photo storage services. With the added social media exposure and insight through the public platform Flickr, the company has established its place as the go-to solution for professional photographers.

The simple and well-designed interface makes Flickr an attractive alternative to Google Photos. Users can tag and share images, as well as download them in various sizes and resolutions. The limit of 1,000 photos for the free account will only suffice for casual users, with an image size limit of roughly 2 to 3 GB.

If you want to enjoy unlimited storage media, users only need to spend 7 US dollars or the equivalent of Rp. 98,000 per month.

Just as the name suggests, iCloud is Apple's cloud storage service that can be used to store various files, including photos and videos, to online storage media.

iPhone or other Apple product users who have a free iCloud account will have the advantage of 5 GB of iCloud storage. This capacity can be expanded up to 2 TB.

The extra storage service offered by iCloud for 50 GB costs 1 US dollar or the equivalent of Rp. 14,000 per month, 200 GB costs 3 US dollars equivalent to Rp. 42,000 per month, and 2 TB costs 10 US dollars, which is around Rp. 140,000 per month. Unfortunately, this service only applies to users of Apple products, such as iPhone and iPad.

This Amazon Photos service has two service options, namely cloud for free Amazon accounts and Prime accounts for paid ones. This service is already available on iOS, Android, macOS, and Windows.

It offers better features than Google Photos, including facial recognition and metadata reading for smart tagging and easy search.

While Amazon only provides 5GB for non-Prime members, it's a good choice for casual users. But if that's not enough, adding 100GB of space to a free account only costs 20 dollars per year, which is comparable to Google Photos 24 dollars per year for an additional 100GB.

Microsoft OneDrive is a powerful and common cloud-based storage solution. The limited features for photo storage (photo editing, smart tagging) are made up by the size of the account and the ability to upload almost any file type. High usability for Windows-based customers, options for file organization, strong file protection layers, and automatic categorization features are also useful.

OneDrive is comparable in price to Google Photos, with 1TB of storage, which is $60 per year. The 1TB OneDrive storage also includes Windows 10 suite, productivity tools (offline multi-page and folder scanning), and free bonuses via Skype.

If you are serious about photography or photo storage, then Adobe is one of the best alternatives. Here, users will find bundled photo storage solutions that include access to Lightroom and Photoshop, with choice of programs and storage capacity depending on price tier.

Each plan comes with Lightroom (Adobe's editing, organizing, and storage program), Spark (online and mobile design app), and Portfolio (website creation). The Lightroom Plan and the Photography Plan are both priced at $120 per year.

The former comes with 1TB of storage and is most comparable to Google Photos in terms of usability, while the latter only provides 20GB of storage but includes access to Lightroom and Photoshop (Adobe graphic or photo editor). Upgrading the Photography Plan to 1TB of storage will double the price to 240 per year.

Similar to Google Drive, Dropbox is also a well-known cloud storage service. Although not as big as 15GB of Google Photos storage, free users will only get 2GB of online storage media.

However, they could expand it by paying a $10 Dropbox Plus subscription for an extra 2 TB of storage, the same as Apple's price for the iCloud service.