Now that the free ride is over here is how to expand your Google Photos storage

Prior to this month, you could upload high-quality photos (refers to size) to your heart’s content. Google Photos didn’t have a cap, however, that’s no longer the case. Now free users are limited to 15GB of storage which might seem like a lot but actually isn’t depending on how many photos you want to back up. If you are a first time Google Photos user with a lot of photos to back up for the first time you can gobble through the cap.

If you need more than 15GB you have to pay. Now here is the tricky part, you cannot do this from Google Photos. All Google Apps share the same storage. This includes Gmail, Google Drive etc. If you receive an email with an attachment that attachment is counted against your 15GB. It’s the same thing if you upload a photo or document.

That service is known as Google One probably because it provides one place for you to control your Google Storage. Think of it as the hard drive for all your services. Before you buy more, Google has a nifty little trick, they can estimate how long your free storage will last based on your current usage. You can find it here. This is personalised so no matter who you are, you get a custom usage estimation.

To add more storage just click on the buy 100GB link. You can do this even if you need more than 100GB. When you click this link a modal pop up with your current plan, the 100GB plan as well as other Google One plans you can subscribe to. You have two options for each plan. You can pay monthly or pay yearly. If you pay yearly you get a 2-month discount.

You need to be very carefully here. Don’t buy more than you need. You can always upgrade when you need more space otherwise you can end up wasting money. Once you can then select a plan and pay using a Visa or MasterCard.

In my experience, BancABC’s Visa is the one offering the least transaction fees. If you opt for the 100GB plan and use FBC’s MasterCard for example you will be charged a fee of US$3.00 which means a total of US$4.99. You end up paying more, about US$36 per year in transaction fees, than what you pay to Google i.e. US$23.88. In a situation like this, it’s better to pay the yearly fee which would be US$22.99 (US$19.99 for Google One and US$3.00 for FBC).

Do you want unlimited storage?

It’s possible to get unlimited storage? Here is another neat trick. You can subscribe to Google Workspace (formerly known as GSuit) instead. That will cost you US$12 per month. Technically you are limited to 2TB per month however Google has never really enforced this limit, just don’t abuse the service otherwise Google will come hard on you and it’s your data that will be at stake.

Don’t for example use the service to store large pirated movies or other pirate content. Use it to legitimately back up your photos. You can also create unlimited Team Drives for your friends but unfortunately, Team Drives cannot be used with Google Photos. If your friends want their own unlimited storage they have to pay US$12 per month.