Tech Q&A: Reaching the limits of unlimited storage in Google Photos – telegraphherald.com

Question: For years, Ive been storing my camera and phone pictures to my online Google Photos account. (I download the camera photos to my PC and upload them to Google Photos from there.)

But for the last couple of months I either havent been able to upload the camera photos from my PC, or could only upload some photos but not others.

Meanwhile, photos I take with my phone are being uploaded to Google Photos. (I dont think this is caused by a shortage of online storage space, because Google Photos is set to free unlimited storage.) Whats wrong? R.S. Roseville, Minn.

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Answer: I think you have two problems: The Google Photos settings on your PC dont match those on your phone, and your unlimited storage does have a limit.

Normally, Google Photos must share its 15 gigabytes of free online storage with your email (Gmail) and cloud data storage (Google Drive.) One advantage of this sharing arrangement is that Google stores your photos at their original quality they retain the amount of data they had when you took them.

But, as youve discovered, Google also offers another choice called high quality, which comes with the promise of free unlimited storage. Under this option, Google Photos uses a technique called data compression that discards some of the data in each photo you store, permanently lowering the photos visual quality (a 10-megabyte photo will be shrunk to 2 or 3 megabytes.)

Because these compressed photos take up less storage space, Google gives you something in return: Your high quality photos will no longer count against your 15 gigabytes of shared storage; this essentially gives you unlimited photo storage.

Heres where the settings on your PC and phone come in. They connect to Google Photos in different ways, so you must choose the high quality photo storage option on each device. While your PC is using the high quality method, I suspect that your phone is not.

As a result, your phone is storing photos online in original quality, which uses up a larger and larger portion of your 15 gigabytes of shared storage. If youve been doing this for years, your shared storage may be approaching zero. Once your Google account is full, you wont be able to store any more data even your unlimited photo storage will stop.

Running low on storage could show up in a couple of ways:

If your 15-gigabyte allotment is nearly used up, you might be able to upload a limited number of additional pictures to Google Photos. This would explain why, on some days, you could upload some photos and not others.

Your remaining available storage might fluctuate daily as a result of adding or deleting data from Photos, Gmail or Drive. As a result, you might be able to store additional photos one day but not the next. This would explain the times that you couldnt upload photos.

What can you do? Delete some data, or buy additional storage capacity (Google charges $2 per month for 100 gigabytes.)

Alternatively, you can reclaim some storage space by using the Google Photos recover storage button (below and to the right of the high quality box youve already checked.)

That will downsize your existing original quality photos to high quality so that they arent counted against your 15-gigabytes of shared storage. You should also change your phones Google Photos setting so that, in the future, it stores photos online at high quality instead of original. (To change the Google Photos picture quality on any device, see tinyurl.com/yc3hcuf7).

Contact Johnson at Tech Q&A, 425 Portland Ave. S., Minneapolis, Minn. 55488-0002; email: steve.j.alexander@gmail.com. Include a full name, city and phone number.

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Tech Q&A: Reaching the limits of unlimited storage in Google Photos - telegraphherald.com

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