As of June 1st, unlimited and free Google Photos storage – Diario La Página expires

Starting tomorrow, June 1, unlimited free storage on Google Photos will expire. Until then, videos and photos uploaded in high quality will not count within the 15 GB the company provides for free.

But all backups of multimedia content created from tomorrow, of any quality, will be deducted from that 15GB quota that is distributed between Gmail, Drive, and Photos. But after this date, the material will use up a portion of the available storage space, except in the case of Pixel phones, as you will continue to enjoy this feature.

Once this limit is exceeded, the user, to continue backing up the content in the corporate cloud, must pay a subscription to the storage service, Google One. If he does not want to use this option, he must make a backup to a hard drive or opt for other paid cloud services.

The company estimates that more than 80% of users will have the ability to store content for up to 3 more years at no cost within the 15 GB storage space, once this restriction, which was first announced in November of last year, comes into effect. To be known in advance several months in advance so that users have time to get acquainted with this initiative and make copies of photos and videos in high quality, which can be done even today without taking up space, as well as to arrange other files and manage available space.

How to free up space

Image compression. Today is the last day to do so, and starting tomorrow this alternative won’t help free up space, as mentioned. You have to go from a computer to photos.google.com/settings. Click on the option that says “Recover Storage”. This will compress the multimedia content in high quality format so that it does not take up space. To delete photos and videos to the trash, you have to select them and in the upper right-hand margin, hit the delete icon.

Delete large files. To do this, it is necessary to log into your account from a computer and view your files arranged from largest size to smallest. Then choose the files that you don’t need, so that they go to the Recycle Bin, where you can then enter them to delete them permanently. Within 24 hours, the space taken up by the files you removed will appear as available in your Drive account.

In contrast, to remove one or more files that are taking up space in Photos, Gmail, or Drive, you can use Google One Storage Manager. So you should enter here. There you will see the content filtered by size as well as the items that have already been discarded in the trash and can be permanently deleted.

Remove emails that take up more space. In Gmail, enter the search box (next to the magnifying glass icon) and type in it: Larger attachment: 10MB. This will filter emails with attachments larger than 10 million. You can replace 10 with a larger number if you want to delete larger files.

Check all the emails you want to delete and tap the trash can icon to delete this content. Then in the left margin, press Menu then Trash to delete it permanently.

What if you run out of space

If you run out of space, you will no longer be able to upload files or photos to Google Drive; In addition to creating original quality backups of photos or videos in Google Photos. You also won’t be able to create new files in Google Jamboard, Docs, Sheets, Presentations, Drawings, or Forms. Conversely, syncing between your computer’s Google Drive folder and My Drive will stop. It is possible that if you run out of space, you will not be able to send or receive emails through Gmail, although you will still be able to access your Google account.

If you exceeded your space quota two or more years ago and didn’t free up or buy more space to go below the limit, Google will likely remove all of your Gmail, Drive, and Photos content. The same thing can happen if you have an account that has been inactive for two years or more, that is, if you don’t use it. The simplest way to keep your data active is to visit Gmail, Google Photos, and Google Drive periodically.

But before this happens, you will receive an email notification and other notifications from Google. The company states, in its terms and conditions, that the user will be contacted at least three months prior to meeting the requirements to delete the content.

In addition, the user will be given the opportunity to prevent their content from being erased, either by purchasing more storage space or by removing the files.

In turn, to avoid losing information, the user has the ability to download all the content that is hosted on Google services, about which the steps mentioned in this article should be followed.