Recognition: Jimmy Westenberg / Android Authority
- Pixel photo backups via Google Photos are currently free for all Pixel devices.
- However, Google has confirmed that future Pixel phones will not have this feature.
- This news is part of the broader drive to monetize Google Photos that began with an announcement yesterday.
If you currently own a Google Pixel phone, you can back up all your photos and videos to Google Photos forever for free (reduced quality). However, as of the landing of the new Pixel devices in 2021, new users will no longer get this benefit.
Google confirmed this Android Central These pixel photo backups will be measured for new devices in 2021. So if you’ve used the 15GB of free space on your Google account, you’ll have to pay to store future photos and videos.
Connected: Google Photos may not back up all of your media: how to check this out
This news is part of Google’s broader drive to monetize Google Photos. Yesterday the company announced that its long-standing policy of allowing unlimited photo and video backups for all users would end in June 2021. The company announced that current Pixel phones would be exempt from this new policy, and it was believed that future Pixels would do well. However, this does not appear to be the case.
Pixel photo backups are required for current devices
The reasons for this new policy are fairly easy to determine. Google is promoting how its Pixel devices get unlimited free backups for Google Photos. Television commercials, magazine advertisements, and internet marketing efforts are making this benefit widely known. If a current Pixel owner finds out Google is taking this advantage away, they can rightly sue the company.
What is surprising, however, is that this does not apply to future Pixel phones. Instead, Google must focus on other aspects of the Pixel ecosystem in order to entice users.
It’s interesting that Google made that decision when it came to pixel photo backups. If the company removed everyone’s edge, you’d think it would be left to pixel owners to add to the appeal of these phones. It seems like a simple marketing ploy to us that makes even more sense now that non-pixel users aren’t getting it. Apparently, Google doesn’t agree.