If you think of your Google Account Storage like a real world storage unit, these concepts will be easier. Let’s say you had a small storage unit that would hold 15 boxes of stuff. Once it gets full, what happens? You can’t store any more stuff! If you take out some of the old boxes, you can put in new ones, but you’re limited to 15 boxes total.
3 Choices when your storage is full
It’s the same with your Google Account Storage. Google gives everyone 15GB of storage for free. Once you fill that up, you have 3 choices:
Do nothing
Get rid of some stuff
Pay for a bigger storage amount
If you choose #1, you won’t be able to add any more photos to your Google Photos but you will be able to access what is already there. That may be acceptable but there’s a catch. You also won’t be able to send or receive any new emails to your Google (gmail) address. Why? Because the Google storage allotment is shared by Google Photos, Gmail, and Google Drive.
If you choose #3, go to Google One to see the prices for bigger storage allotments. The current (November 2021) prices are:
15GB = Free
100GB = $1.99/mo or $19.99/yr
200GB = $2.99/mo or $29.99/yr
2Terrabytes = $9.99/mo or $99.99/yr
How many GB do you need for photos and videos?
People always ask, how many photos can I fit into 1Gigabyte? Well, it depends on several factors, your camera, how many videos you take, whether you use Original size or Storage saver. A rough estimate is between 500 and 1,000 photos per Gigabyte. If you know how many photos and how many videos you have, and you know their average file size, here’s a calculator you can use to find out how many Gibabytes you need.
To get a number directly from Google Photos, I uploaded 7200 photos and videos to a fresh account (Alice) after June 1 using Storage Saver size. Her storage shows 9.66 GB used by Google Photos (which works out to 750 photos/GB). If I had used Original size, I believe it would have taken at least twice the storage.
What happens if I stop paying?
Let’s say you filled up your 15GB of free storage so you started paying $2/mo for the 100 GB. You kept adding photos, email, and Drive files and are now using 40GB of storage. If you stop paying then your account’s storage allotment reverts to the 15GB Free plan. You are now 25GB over your allotment. You will not be able to add any more photos, send or receive emails, or add new Drive files. You will get warnings from Google telling you to either delete content until you are within your allotment, or pay for more storage. If you ignore them and do nothing, Google will keep bugging you but they won’t delete any of your content until you have ignored them for 2 years, after 2 years they may delete your content or even delete your account. See the official help page for Managing your Google Storage.
What is Google One?
If you pay for storage from Google, that makes you a premium “member” of Google One. When you are a premium member, you get additional perks like one-on-one support via phone call, chat, or email. Google One members will also see premium editing features in Google Photos like Dynamic, HDR, and Portrait. If you don’t pay for storage, you are still part of Google One, but you’re on the Free plan. You still visit One.Google.com to see storage statistics for your account.
But wait – I thought Google Photos was free and unlimited?!
Chris Guld is President and Teacher-in-Chief at GeeksOnTour.com. She's been teaching technology since 1983 and still loves it! People appreciate her simple yet complete teaching style. Chris is a scuba diver, RVer, and world traveler. She takes a LOT of photos and uses Google Photos to manage over 100,000 of them from her life. Google recognizes her as a Diamond level Product Expert for Google Photos, she's written a book on it and loves teaching others how to manage their lifetime of photos with Google Photos.
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If you stop paying then your account's storage allotment reverts to the 15GB Free plan. You are now 25GB over your allotment. You will not be able to add any more photos, send or receive emails, or add new Drive files.
If you run out of storage space, this may happen in Google Drive: You can't sync or upload new files. You can't create new files in Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings, Forms, and Jamboard. Neither you nor anyone else can edit or copy your affected files.
When you free up space on the Google Photos app on Android or iPhone, it removes locally stored copies of photos and videos from your device while keeping them safely backed up in your Google Photos cloud storage. This action reclaims storage space on your phone without permanently deleting your media.
Do note that, Google will keep all of your data intact even if you don't renew the subscription. However, you won't be able to store any of the new files or content until you free up the storage from the free 15GB quota.
If you're inactive in Google Photos for 2 years or more, your content may be deleted. Learn about the Google Photos inactivity policy. If you're over your storage limit for 2 years or more, your content may be deleted.
You will not be able to add any more photos, send or receive emails, or add new Drive files. You will get warnings from Google telling you to either delete content until you are within your allotment, or pay for more storage.
If you stay inactive for 2 years or more: Your photos and videos are deleted and sent to trash. Backed up photos and videos deleted due to inactivity will stay in your trash for 60 days before they're deleted forever.
If you cancel your storage plan, you'll lose all additional storage for your account. At the end of your billing cycle, you may be over quota. If you're over your storage quota for 2 years, all the content that counts toward your storage quota may be deleted.
As of June 1, Google has ended its unlimited free storage policy for Google Photos. Google Photos ended its unlimited free storage policy for photos and videos as of June 1. Now any new photos and videos you upload will count toward the free 15GB of storage that comes with every Google account.
Google Photos is an Editors' Choice winner, highly recommended to anyone who wants to easily find photos, edit their pictures quickly and easily, and back up everything to the cloud. If you need a professional-grade photo workflow app, we recommend Adobe Lightroom Classic.
But if you have not logged onto a Google Photos account for a while, be warned – starting from this year, if a Google account has not been used or signed in to for at least two years, the company has announced it could delete the account and all its contents.
You'll lose all the data and content in that account, like emails, files, calendars, and photos. You won't be able to use Google services where you sign in with that account, like Gmail, Drive, Calendar, or Play.
You can automatically save your photos and videos to your Google Account when you turn on backup. You can access your saved photos and videos from any device you're signed into, but only you can find them unless you choose to share them. You can back up photos and videos to only one Google Account at a time.
If you cancel your storage plan, you'll lose all additional storage for your account. At the end of your billing cycle, you may be over quota. If you're over your storage quota for 2 years, all the content that counts toward your storage quota may be deleted.
Every Google Account comes with 15 GB of cloud storage at no charge, which is shared across Google Drive, Gmail, and Google Photos. When you upgrade to a paid Google One monthly subscription, your total storage increases to 100 GB or more, depending on the plan you choose.
If your billing account remains invalid for a protracted period, some resources might be removed from the projects associated with your account. For example, if you use Google Cloud, your Compute Engine resources might be removed. Removed resources are not recoverable.
* If you're over your quota for 2 years or longer: If you don't free up or purchase more space to get back under quota, all of your content may be removed from Gmail, Google Photos, and Google Drive (this includes Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings, Forms, and Jamboard files).
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