Get it while it's still free - Google Photos policy change June 1

[gamb00ler]

I use Google photos to archive all my old photos.

The current policy of unlimited forever storage is ending in about 2 weeks.

The new policy will mostly affect photos added after June 1.

All details are here: https://support.google.com/photos/answer/10100180?hl=en

[covidiot]

just buy some backup drives. they're cheap

[gamb00ler]

22 minutes ago, covidiot said:

just buy some backup drives. they're cheap

and very limiting...

Network access is pretty much everywhere.  If I go visit my housebound 100+ MIL I can bring up any picture on my smartphone/tablet.  If I want to do that when they're on a backup drive....possible also but too many hoops and extra hardware involved.

All new smartphone pics are automagically backed up when I get WiFi access anywhere in my travels.

Did I mention it's cost free and ad free?

Edited May 14, 2021 by gamb00ler

[KhunBENQ]

Even Google can not swallow for free the billions and zillions of photos from the ever increasing pixel mania ????

Sorry, have to photograph my dinner now, 100 photos of fried eggs from breakfast already uploaded ????

Who remembers the time when there were 36 photos per cartridge?

Edited May 14, 2021 by KhunBENQ

[OneMoreFarang]

I think people should get used to pay for services.

Are you willing to pay i.e. 5 USD per month to save all your pictures? If yes, then just pay for it.

If no then the pictures are obviously not important.

 

[KhunBENQ]

10 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

If no then the pictures are obviously not important.

I have about 11700 photos stored (offline, 33 GB) from 2004 to 2021.

Really not much.

Important? Is it 5% or less? I am not sure.

Edited May 14, 2021 by KhunBENQ

[gamb00ler]

57 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

I think people should get used to pay for services.

Are you willing to pay i.e. 5 USD per month to save all your pictures? If yes, then just pay for it.

If no then the pictures are obviously not important.

 

I tried to find out how much storage my photos are taking but for some reason Google doesn't make it easy to find that.  From Google, $20/year would get me 100GB, $30 for 200GB.  Perhaps the only way to find out is download them all to my own drive.  I actually don't have a copy of the photos other than the cloud storage.

 

I don't see how Google can monetize my use of its storage for my photos.  I assume that at some time in the future I will have to pay the rent or buy my own storage.

[OneMoreFarang]

9 hours ago, gamb00ler said:

I don't see how Google can monetize my use of its storage for my photos.

Don't worry, I am sure they have an agreement with the NSA. ???? 

[gamb00ler]

10 hours ago, gamb00ler said:

I tried to find out how much storage my photos are taking but for some reason Google doesn't make it easy to find that.  From Google, $20/year would get me 100GB, $30 for 200GB.  Perhaps the only way to find out is download them all to my own drive.  I actually don't have a copy of the photos other than the cloud storage.

 

I don't see how Google can monetize my use of its storage for my photos.  I assume that at some time in the future I will have to pay the rent or buy my own storage.

Thanks to OneMoreFarang's post I explored how much storage my photos were occupying(29GB).  To get that number I had to ask Google to prepare the files for download.  I will take the opportunity to now back them up to my own hardware as well.

35 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

Don't worry, I am sure they have an agreement with the NSA. ???? 

I think Google could get a better offer from the IRS.  Since gambling for a living is strictly a CASH business, I think a number of my former associates/friends were less than completely honest each April 15th.  Not that any of my photos are incriminatory. ????????

[clivebaxter]

I keep away from Google as much as possible, would certainly never trust files with them

[wpcoe]

12 hours ago, KhunBENQ said:

Who remembers the time when there were 36 photos per cartridge?

 

Heck, most of my first cameras were 12 per roll.   I had a really old camera (1930s Graflex SpeedGraphic) that took cut-film negative (i.e. one picture, then change the film.)

[sandyf]

11 hours ago, gamb00ler said:

I tried to find out how much storage my photos are taking but for some reason Google doesn't make it easy to find that.

If you follow the link in the OP and then click on "personalised estimate", you will get a breakdown of your google storage use, photos, gmail & drive.

They estimate I am ok for 4 years but that is down to the 9GB I have on Google Drive, my 12 years of photos is virtually insignificant. I will be pushing up daisies before there is any problem.

[khunjeff]

11 hours ago, gamb00ler said:

I tried to find out how much storage my photos are taking but for some reason Google doesn't make it easy to find that.

 

Open Google and click on your photo/avatar in the corner, then select "Manage Your Google Account". Scroll down and you'll see "Account Storage". Click on "Manage storage" at the bottom of that block, and it will bring up a screen telling you how much space your various types of data (including photos) are taking up.

 

 

Edited May 15, 2021 by khunjeff

[gamb00ler]

1 hour ago, khunjeff said:

 

Open Google and click on your photo/avatar in the corner, then select "Manage Your Google Account". Scroll down and you'll see "Account Storage". Click on "Manage storage" at the bottom of that block, and it will bring up a screen telling you how much space your various types of data (including photos) are taking up.

yeah... I tried that, but Google showed Photos was using 0 storage.  When I prepared the photos for download the total of the 13 zip files was 29GB.

Edited May 15, 2021 by gamb00ler

[Susco]

I avoid everything Google, because most of their products are real resource hogs, and I think we all know why that is.

[George Aylesham]

Google imposed its system on me with out asking and it took over all my photos. I had some difficulting in deleting the prgramme but I'm now happily managing my own pics all by myself!

[chilly07]

Paying for goods/services to the USA is a risk activity. So far this year I have been scammed twice despite my new year resolution not to buy goods/ services from the USA. Pay on delivery in Thailand works extremely well including items from Wufluland. Can also work with services with payment not being released until service complete. Unfortunately USA the land of scams controls pretty much all the payment methods and the Internet.

[thto]

17 hours ago, OneMoreFarang said:

I think people should get used to pay for services.

Are you willing to pay i.e. 5 USD per month to save all your pictures? If yes, then just pay for it.

If no then the pictures are obviously not important.

 

 

Don't you know ? we already pay with our data !

I think only stupid apple users are used to pay for what should be free because actually already paid without knowing...

 

 

[PETERTHEEATER]

17 hours ago, KhunBENQ said:

Even Google can not swallow for free the billions and zillions of photos from the ever increasing pixel mania ????

Sorry, have to photograph my dinner now, 100 photos of fried eggs from breakfast already uploaded ????

Who remembers the time when there were 36 photos per cartridge?

Me, me, me! And one plate per shot in my Speed Graphic....????

[bendejo]

Does google have access to your photo files, and will they be accessed when someone else does a photo search?

If they don't look into your files how do they know the files contain photos?  File extensions are changed easily enough.

 

When the product is free YOU, and the things associated with you, are the product.

 

Edited May 17, 2021 by bendejo

[thaitom]

Could someone here tell me how can I download all my photos stored on google photos at one time ? 

[gamb00ler]

55 minutes ago, thaitom said:

Could someone here tell me how can I download all my photos stored on google photos at one time ? 

Open the web page for your Google Photos account.

Click on the gear icon near the upper right corner of the screen.  That will open Settings.

On the Settings screen scroll down to "Export your data" and click on the V symbol to expand it.

Click on "Learn more" to understand the process and then "Backup" to execute it.

Google will send you an email telling you when the compressed files are ready for download.

 

Google will include extra files (.json) that will contain metadata about your photos.  The data will include time/date plus any name you assigned to a person in the photo.  It may include location data also.

If you have used Google Photos to edit any pictures such as "Fix lighting", then you will get copies of the original and the edited version.

 

I received 13 .zip files each about 2.15GB.

Edited May 23, 2021 by gamb00ler

[sanuk711]

On 5/14/2021 at 8:24 PM, OneMoreFarang said:

Are you willing to pay i.e. 5 USD per month to save all your pictures? If yes, then just pay for it.

If no then the pictures are obviously not important.

Q/ Why do I get the feeling that once everyone has signed on.....it wont stay at $us5 a month

 

A/ Because I'm a cynical old Geezer..............????‍????

[thaitom]

5 hours ago, gamb00ler said:

Open the web page for your Google Photos account.

Click on the gear icon near the upper right corner of the screen.  That will open Settings.

On the Settings screen scroll down to "Export your data" and click on the V symbol to expand it.

Click on "Learn more" to understand the process and then "Backup" to execute it.

Google will send you an email telling you when the compressed files are ready for download.

 

Google will include extra files (.json) that will contain metadata about your photos.  The data will include time/date plus any name you assigned to a person in the photo.  It may include location data also.

If you have used Google Photos to edit any pictures such as "Fix lighting", then you will get copies of the original and the edited version.

 

I received 13 .zip files each about 2.15GB.

Thank you so much , that was so easily done.

[OJAS]

On 5/14/2021 at 7:53 PM, gamb00ler said:

and very limiting...

Network access is pretty much everywhere.  If I go visit my housebound 100+ MIL I can bring up any picture on my smartphone/tablet.  If I want to do that when they're on a backup drive....possible also but too many hoops and extra hardware involved.

All new smartphone pics are automagically backed up when I get WiFi access anywhere in my travels.

Did I mention it's cost free and ad free?

 

All very well until/unless some ransomware hackers were to get their grubby little mitts on your photos and demand that you pay them a fortune in bitcoins for retrieval purposes. As far as I can tell, there's no cast-iron way of eliminating the risk, no matter how careful one is in avoiding clicking on dodgy links in phishing emails, etc. That is the reason why I store all my photos and other files on external drives these days, not even on my laptop and definitely not in some virtual cumulonimbus!

Edited May 25, 2021 by OJAS

[gamb00ler]

10 hours ago, OJAS said:

 

All very well until/unless some ransomware hackers were to get their grubby little mitts on your photos and demand that you pay them a fortune in bitcoins for retrieval purposes. As far as I can tell, there's no cast-iron way of eliminating the risk, no matter how careful one is in avoiding clicking on dodgy links in phishing emails, etc. That is the reason why I store all my photos and other files on external drives these days, not even on my laptop and definitely not in some virtual cumulonimbus!

Would you fee safe in Cheyenne Mountain?

Google is a top tier provider of online services.  Since not one thing created by humans is perfect, I'm sure they also have vulnerabilities somewhere.  But, my money is on them making fewer mistakes than myself (or you) in maintaining secure digital content and access in the long, LONG term.