This is an announcement from Google yesterday:
From 1 June 2021, high quality and express quality content will count towards your Google Account storage. Once you reach your storage limit, you can either subscribe to Google One (where available) for additional storage or delete content in order to continue with the free storage option in Photos.
Important: If you have a Pixel 5 or an earlier device, you’ll continue to receive free unlimited storage for photos and videos backed up from your Pixel devices.
This will affect me very badly. I may have to get a Pixel 5. In the meantime, I will use imgur for all my blog photos. Imgur is very reliable and they have no limits for photo uploads.
Here's an example of a pic that I uploaded on imgur and linked to this blog. I'm holding a creeper that grew all the way to the 3rd storey of my house as it crept all round a pipe. The creepers in my garden are quite a pest and it took me a long time to remove this creeper this afternoon. The stem and roots are very long.
I'm trying to wean myself off Google Photos. I haven't decided yet whether to get myself a Pixel 5 before 1st June 2021. I have been doing a lot of gardening and weeding - I'll post more when I have the time. Imgur will be my image host for this blog.
NOTE: Just in case I sound disapproving of Google, I need to make it clear that I think Google's stand is justifiable. It's very decent of Google to decide that photos uploaded before 1 June 2021 will be unaffected. This is a much nobler approach to take than what Flickr did to its users - it deleted all photos in excess of an arbitrary cut-off number that it unilaterally set. Google still allows free uploads from its Pixel phones and why not? Google has given enough freebies to its competitors and cannot be expected to give more. I may get a Pixel because I'm definitely very dependent on Google. I just hope Pixel has a good camera that has all the necessary features for selfie addicts. My experience so far has been that non-Asian phones tend to lack that special extra that selfie addicts need. Maybe there aren't so many selfie addicts outside Asia but if I am going to switch to a Pixel, I need a good selfie-friendly phone.
Yes, sad news! But you should not upload giant photos to the Internet, otherwise they will take a long time to load and take a lot of time, and on disk as well. Especially with cameras that shoot in high resolution. Each photo must be reduced before uploading to the Internet for the site to 1500-2000 px and a resolution of 76. Then your Google photo will be hammered slowly and will be enough to store thousands of photos.
ReplyDeleteThanks! That's very good advice. But I'm so used to a lifestyle where everything is photographed and automatically uploaded in Google. I will definitely need to get a Pixel.
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