Google Photos may be the best product the company has ever released. But just last week, Google let it be known that it was ending its free unlimited photo backups (with some Pixel-specific exclusions), pushing us all toward paid Google One storage plans as we risk running out of space after the new policy kicks in next year. In light of the news, we’re curious to know how you’re backing up your photos on your phone.
Although Google Photos is likely ubiquitous among our readers — since it ships with most phones, it’s free, and it’s simple to use — there are a lot of competing services out there, including some you might not be aware of. Cloud storage providers you’ve heard of like Dropbox and Microsoft’s OneDrive can be used to back up your photos just as easily as other files, but there’s also Amazon Photos, which offers unlimited full-resolution photo storage for anyone with a Prime account.
Samsung used to have its own photo backups in Samsung Cloud, but it announced it was killing that off back in September. You can also roll your own solution with something like Synology’s DS photo and an NAS, and I have to assume there are open alternatives for folks using other solutions. Even deeper down the hardware rabbit hole are things like SanDisk’s iXpand wireless charger/photo backup system. Of course, many of our readers use iPhones and probably take advantage of Apple’s iCloud, and there are almost certainly other solutions most of us haven’t even heard of.
Plenty of us are shopping around for a Google Photos replacement when the new rules kick in next June, so what do you use to keep your photos safe — if you back them up at all?
