you are not leaving Google Photos for the time being

After offering free storage for photos and videos for six years, the search giant’s perk came to an end on Tuesday. For every new photo and video you upload in the Photos app, you lose storage space. Does this tempt people to switch to another storage service? Read it in the AW Poll result.

Free Google Photos Storage

Unlimited free storage, albeit at a lower quality, couldn’t last forever. Still, after six years, it takes some getting used to that every photo or video uploaded will take up storage space on your Google account. When the 15 GB of storage you get for free with every Google account starts to fill up, it’s time to think about alternatives to backing up your photos and videos, or decide to buy a paid one. subscribe to Google One to get enough storage to store your photos and videos. If your Google storage is full, Google Photos will immediately stop making digital backups.

Alternative working methods

Google does have a workaround though: it lets you remove blurry photos, screenshots, and large videos with its own cleaning tool. In addition, you can save storage in a few short steps via the Google One website by cleaning up files from other Google services; this process can also be done over the phone. You can read all about it here.

If you prefer not to subscribe to Google One or if you are unable to free up enough storage to make backups on your Google account for the time being, there are several alternatives to look at. For example, you can use a NAS, short for Network Attached Storage. A NAS is usually easy to access via cloud software, even away from home, and with an app like DS Files from Synology you can easily back up files on your phone.

Please note, a NAS requires maintenance and with a NAS you are responsible for the storage and protection of the files. You could look further into alternative cloud services; whether you are cheaper than with Google will depend on the cloud provider. The disadvantage of this option is that backups usually have to be performed manually. There are often no apps like Photos to do the backups automatically.

AW Poll, this is what you do

So there are plenty of options to continue using Photos, or to explore an alternative option. For the AW Poll we asked you last week what you plan to do now that Google Photos is going to cost money. The vast majority of Androidworld readers say not to worry — they will continue to use Photos for the time being because they still have enough storage for the backups. That says 40.1 percent of the readers who voted.

Not all readers still have enough storage in their Google account, forcing them to take out a One subscription, which was answered by 28.3 percent of voters. Ultimately, 16.8 percent of the readers who voted say goodbye to Photos. From now on they will store their photos and videos on a NAS or external hard drive.