Google has announced that it will soon start charging Google Photos storage as soon as users upload more than 15 GB to their accounts. The service was free for five years.
The change will take place on June 1, 2021, after which users will have to pay for additional storage on Google One if they wish to upload photos beyond the free 15GB limit.
The only users who will be excluded from this policy change are the users of the Pixel smartphone, who will still be able to upload "high quality" photos without limits even after June next year.
In the announcement, Google stated that photos or videos uploaded in "high quality" before June 1, 2021 will not be counted in the storage limit of 15 GB.
Other policy changes announced by Google to Google Drive.
Also, from June 1, 2021 onwards, documents, spreadsheets, drawings and forms will start to be counted in the users' storage space, ie the free storage limit of 15 GB.
According to Google, the policy changes are an effort "aligning our policies with industry standards".
Google added that it will delete data from inactive accounts in cases where owners have not logged in for at least two years.
Google also said that if users have exceeded their storage limit in those two years, it may also delete content from services Gmail, Drive and Photos. The company said it will notify users "multiple times" before attempting to delete any content.
Google has introduced the Google One two years ago, which has since been characterized as a brand new version of Google Drive due to its different benefits and cheaper storage prices data.