Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
Google offers 15GB of free cloud storage, which must be shared between Gmail, Google Drive, Google Photos, and other Google services. Otherwise, you’ll need to splash out for cloud storage via the company’s Google One service.
We recently posted an article detailing what happens to your data if you stop paying for Google One. We also posted a poll inside the article asking readers whether they paid for Google One cloud storage. Here’s how you answered it.
Do you have a Google One subscription?
This poll received a massive 9,500 votes, and it turns out that ~73% of respondents currently pay for Google One cloud storage. This isn’t a surprise as photos and videos from your smartphone can quickly consume the 15GB of free storage. And that’s before we get into Gmail and Google Drive.
It’s also worth noting that Google Photos offers some impressive AI smarts. This includes natural language search, face tagging, automatic organization of snaps, generative AI editing, and more. So we can see why you’d splash out on Google One if you’ve got a big photo library.
However, almost 18% of surveyed readers said they didn’t want a Google One subscription. I’m guessing these users either have a different cloud storage service or use local storage almost exclusively. We can understand choosing an alternative cloud storage service with different benefits (e.g., OneDrive) or a different payment model (e.g., pCloud). Local storage is another sensible strategy, putting you firmly in control of your data and giving you peace of mind regarding security and privacy.
Finally, just 9.2% of respondents said the free account offers enough storage. Google offers 15GB of free storage, which is fine for Gmail, documents, and a small photo library. Google also offers a few ways to reduce your storage footprint, such as compressing your backed-up photos and videos. Furthermore, Google Drive highlights large files and blurry photos for deletion. All these steps are handy if you’re approaching the 15GB limit and need to free up space.
