Google made a major change to its policies last week by announcing that it will end the free unlimited storage benefit and will start charging for the storage space your photos and videos take over the 15GB quota. The change will come into effect on June 1, 2021 and is aimed to help Google convince more people to get a Google One subscription.  

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After the implementation of the new guidelines, any photos or videos uploaded on Google Photos after June 1 next year, will count toward the free 15GB storage limit as part of your Google Account. The announcement obviously comes as a challenge for users who might have seen Drive storage as a good way to back up their data.  

If you are wondering for how long will your Google Photo storage last, there is a tool that can help. David Lieb, Product Lead for Google Photos, tweeted about the tool, which will give users an estimate regarding their storage quota. 

Users can access the tool at photos.google.com/storage. The tool will show you the number of years for which you can continue using Cloud Storage without running out of it. If you are constantly uploading photos and videos and still on the free Google account, you will likely run out of space quickly and might need to upgrade to the paid option. 

The Google Pixel owners have been exempted from the change. They will to be able to upload their photos and videos in ‘high quality' from their devices even after June 1. But unlike before, they will also not be able to access unlimited storage for their content in its original file size. 

Other users, who don't own a Pixel phone, have had a 15GB cap for uploading ‘original quality' photos and videos that did not apply to Pixel phones up until now. This means Pixel users will also have to compromise for storage space to some extent.  

The tech giant claims that these changes will not impact most users as 80 percent of its userbase “should still be able to store roughly three more years' worth of memories” using the free 15GB storage allocation. Some alerts and warnings will also be provided through the Google Photos app once a user reaches near the limit.