On June 1, 2021, Google started counting all uploads to Google Photos towards your Google Drive limit.Īll of the photos uploaded before that date don’t count to your storage limit, but anything uploaded after the fact will chew up your data. What happened to Google Photos’ free storage? You get 15GB of free storage by default with Google Drive before you have to pay a few sheckles a month for additional storage. You could always keep your images and videos in the High Quality tier, but these would count against your Google Drive storage limit.
There was a barely noticeable difference with compressed video, but not enough to dissuade you from using the free service. But again, they were compressed down to 1080p quality. Videos could also be uploaded and stored free of charge. Thankfully, the compressed images were imperceptibly different to their full-size counterparts. Photos above that size would be compressed.
Users could upload as many photos under 16-megapixels as they wanted. When Google Photos launched back in 2015, the company offered an incredible deal to tempt users: free, unlimited photo storage.
