Starting June 1, all photos that you backup on Google Photos will count towards your free 15GB Google account storage. Until now, only those photos that were backed up in Original Quality consumed your Google account storage and Google offered unlimited backup for photos saved in High Quality and did occupy your Google account storage. But from June 1, 2021, all images that get backed up on Google Photos will automatically consume your limited free 15GB Google account space that is shared by Gmail, Docs and Drive. Note that High Quality photos are compressed and usually are of low quality when compared to Original Quality photos but High Quality photos occupy less storage space.
What this change meansWith all Google Photos backup consuming your limited free 15GB storage, you will soon run out of space. This may be problematic as after the free account storage limit is exhausted you may stop receiving emails on that particular Gmail account. You will have to either delete photos, videos or keep clearing emails to ensure that you do not get cut off from having email access.
There are a few options you have now. You may decide to move to another service provider like Microsoft OneDrive, Apple iCloud, DropBox, Amazon Photos and others. Or, you may want to open a new Google account with free 15GB storage to save your future photos. Another option is buying a portable SSD with cloud storage to save the photos.
What you should do immediately
While you take time to decide how you are going to backup your photos, the first thing you should do is simply disable the back and sync option in your Google Photos app immediately. This will prevent unnecessary images from getting backed up and save you the hassle of deleting them later.
How to stop Google Photos backup
1.Open your Google Photos account
Open the Google Photos app on your Android phone or tablet or iPhone and sign in to your Google Account.
2.Disabling backup on Google Photos
At the top right, tap your account profile photo or initial. Select Photos settings and then Back up & sync. Tap “Back up & sync” toggle button to off.
Note that you will have to do this for all the devices that are lynced to the particular Gmail account.