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Bad news for fans of photos and Flickr — the online photo service is slashing free storage space for users from a generous amount, way down to a meager amount. Instead of getting a whopping 1 TB of free space (1 TB = 1000 GB), users will get to store only 1000 photos for free on Flickr.
No more will Flickr be the best repository on the Internet for storing your full resolution photos for free. Flickr is headed in a new direction, having been acquired by SmugMug from Yahoo earlier this year.
No More 1 TB of Free Photo Storage on Flickr
The press release announcing the change stated:
Flickr has long offered a free plan to photographers, and we remain committed to a vibrant free offering. Free accounts will now be for a member’s 1,000 best photos or videos, regardless of size.
This means, we are no longer offering a free terabyte of storage. Unfortunately, “free” services are seldom actually free for users. Users pay with their data or with their time. We would rather the arrangement be transparent.”
Flickr Pro Plan
Need more storage space for your photos? Flickr is offering a Pro Plan for $49.99/year that gives users:
- Unlimited storage of photos and videos at full resolution
- Ad-free browsing
- Advanced statistics about your photos
Other benefits include partner discounts, video storage up to 10 minutes, premier support and more.
Users who sign up for the Pro Plan before November 30, 2018 will receive a 30% discount off of the fee for the first year.
You can find out more about Flickr’s Pro Plan, including how to sign up for it, at the Flickr Looking Ahead page.
Deadlines
Users with free Flickr accounts will have until January 8, 2019 to use their free 1 TB of photo storage. After that date they won’t be able to add any more photos, if they have more than 1000 photos on Flickr.
Beginning on February 5, 2019, Flickr will delete photos from free accounts, from oldest to newest, until those accounts meet the 1000 photo limit.
From Flickr:
Free members with more than 1,000 photos or videos uploaded to Flickr have until Tuesday, January 8, 2019, to upgrade to Pro or download content over the limit. After January 8, 2019, members over the limit will no longer be able to upload new photos to Flickr. After February 5, 2019, free accounts that contain over 1,000 photos or videos will have content actively deleted — starting from oldest to newest date uploaded — to meet the new limit.”
Reactions from Fans of Flickr
Some fans of Flickr have been displeased by the announcement, many pointing out that a treasure trove of preserved photos will be lost forever when Flickr starts deleting photos:
This is a good point. I scanned and uploaded to @Flickr all the photos my grandfather took during WWII. The son of the other sailors on his ship found his dad’s picture after his dad’d death and was able to give it to his mother as a gift. Now, I’m going to be deleting my acct.
— Aimee Dars Ellis ⓥ (@aimeedars) November 2, 2018
Others hope Flickr will change its policy and not delete photos going forward:
. @Flickr needs to take a page from @qapitalapp on how to appreciate their users! THIS is how you return your loyalty. Thank you, Qapital. I’ve loved your app for years and will continue to be a user for years to come. BEST way to save money! pic.twitter.com/CRql7Xu3mQ
— Moxie Tox (@MoxieTalksTV) November 14, 2018
Other fans of Flickr applauded the decision to limit free users to 1000 photos. See, Thomas Hawk’s Digital Connection, Why Limiting Free Users to 1,000 Photos on Flickr Is a Smart Move.
What You Should Do Now
If you’ve been using Flickr as your photo storage service, you have several choices:
1. Upgrade to Flickr’s Pro Plan. By paying the annual fee you’ll be able to preserve your uploaded photos on their site.
2. Transfer your photos to a different online photo storage service, such as Amazon Photos or Google Photos.
3. Do nothing and let Flickr delete all but 1000 of your photos.
You can also transfer your photos to a local storage drive, such as the hard drive on your computer or an external hard drive. This is a helpful addition to online storage, but does not give you access to your stored photos from other computers or mobile devices. And hard drives can crash, or become lost or stolen.
Online Photo Storage Alternatives
Both Amazon Photos and Google Photos could be the new home for your photo files. These services offer unlimited storage for photos
Amazon Prime members get unlimited storage for their photos at full resolution in Amazon Photos as one of their benefits. Learn more at => Free Unlimited Photo Storage for Amazon Prime Members!
So if you’ve an Amazon Prime member, Amazon Photos may be your best option to back up and store all of your photos. Check out => How to Turn Your Echo Show or Spot Into a Digital Photo Frame.
Google Photos offers free unlimited photo storage, and could be a compelling alternative to Flickr for those who need to store copious quantities of photos. Don’t Miss => 12 Reasons Why Google Photos Is My Favorite Photo Service.
Google Photos does not store photos at full resolution with their free option — photo files are compressed to 16 MP. But you may not notice a difference in your photos stored on Google Photos.
This article by Photo Arena, Google Photos “High quality” vs “Original”: What’s the difference and should you care, shows side-by-side comparisons of photos compressed by Google Photos versus original photos.
Photos taken on Google’s Pixel phones are automatically stored at full resolution on Google Photos. You can also pay for a Google One plan that gives you additional storage so you can save photos at full resolution on Google Photos.
If you’re moving your photos to a different online storage service, check out LifeHacker, How to Move Your Photos From Flickr to Another Service.
Flickr App
As of this writing, Flickr’s app has not yet been updated to reflect the change to Flickr’s policy. The app still says that users get 1 TB of free space for storing photos.
If you are not going to upgrade to Flickr’s Pro Plan, be sure to turn off the automatic uploading feature on Flickr’s app. Because Flickr will be deleting older photos first, you shouldn’t add any new photos to Flickr via its app (assuming you account is already above the 1000 photo threshold).
To turn off auto-uploading on the Flickr app, tap the person icon in the lower right corner of the menu bar. On the next screen, tap the gear icon in the upper right corner of the screen. On the drop-down menu, choose Auto-Uploadr.
Slide Auto-Uploadr to Off to prevent more photos from your phone being backed up to Flickr.
Your Thoughts
Have you been using Flickr as a free online photo storage service? Are you pleased that Flickr is changing its storage limit from 1 TB to 1000 photos? Where will you be storing your photos?
Share your thoughts in the Comments section below!
