In 2021 there are a lot of changes to talk about when it comes to Google Photos,
one of the best services available to backup organize and share your photos and videos with
friends and family. Now in this video i'm going to take you through some of the biggest changes
coming to Google Photos in 2021 as well as what's been added to the service within the past year.
Last year we did a video on how to use Google Photos so if you're unfamiliar with Google Photos
i'd encourage you to pause this video and watch that one first and then come back here
for the changes. Now by far the biggest change coming to Google Photos will happen on June 1st,
that's when the company will implement their new storage policy for Google Accounts starting on
June 1st any new photo or video uploaded to Google Photos will count against the free 15 gigabytes of
storage you get when you sign up for a Google Account. This applies to both original quality
photos which currently count against storage as well as high quality photos which currently do not
count towards your Google Account storage limit. Also starting on June 1st, other Google products
like docs, sheets, slides, drawings, and yes even jam boards, will all start counting against your
storage as well. So if you already have a Google Photos account what exactly does this change
mean for you? Well first, any high quality photos and videos that you've uploaded to Google Photos
prior to June 1st 2021 will not, i repeat they will not count against that 15 gig storage limit.
Only new photos and videos you upload to Google Photos after June 1st 2021 will count against
that 15 gig limit. Second, if you have a Google Pixel 1 through 5, any photos or videos you take
and backup as high quality to Google Photos will continue to not count against your storage limit
after June 1st 2021. Now what happens if you hit that 15 gigabyte limit for your Google account?
Well once you hit that limit you will start having to pay for more storage. Google has created a
personalized estimate you can use to determine how long your current storage may last by taking into
account how frequently you backup photos videos and other content to your Google Account. You
can see your own personalized estimate by going to photos.google.com/storage. Now before you go and
upgrade your storage there are ways to cut down on the existing storage you're using. Google will be
releasing some new storage management tools after June 1st in Google Photos to help you cut down
on your storage usage. The new tools can help you do things like identify screenshots, dark photos,
blurry photos, etc, basically trying to help you get rid of any photos you may not want anymore.
Google One which we'll talk about in more detail in just a second, also has a management tool to
help you delete files from your Google Drive and Gmail to help free up additional storage, so if
you've cleaned up your storage as much as possible and you're still hitting that 15 gigabyte limit,
it is time to upgrade your storage. So what are your storage upgrade options to upgrade
your storage? You'll need to subscribe to Google One, Google's membership program that gives you
expanded storage, access to experts for Google product support, discounts in the Google store,
and more. Google One has several pricing tiers. The entry level subscription is $20 US dollars
a year or $199 a month for 100 GB of storage. The next level is $30 a year or $299 per month for 200
GB of storage, plus 3% off at the Google Store. Next level is $100 a year for 2 TB of storage
plus a 10% discount at the Google store and access to android VPN. The last storage tiers
are probably for more heavy storage users and have the same discount and VPN access as the 2
TB plan. For $50 a month you can get 10 TB of storage or for $100 a month you can get 20 TB
of storage. If you're in a family you can invite up to five additional family members to your plan
to simplify your storage. Family members will get their own space to store personal files,
emails, and photos, plus everyone will get access to additional Google One benefits like the Google
store discount and the VPN if you choose a plan that include those. Alright well that's everything
for the storage changes coming to Google Photos this year, now let's talk about some of the other
things that Google has added to Google Photos since our video last year. One of the largest
changes to Google Photos is the simplified ui and logo. In the app there are now just three tabs:
photos, search, and library. The photos tab shows you your photos with a memories carousel
at the top. Search gives you quick access to the people places and things most important to you,
there's also an interactive map now which shows you a heat map of the areas around the globe that
you've taken photos of. The hotter the colors, the more photos you've taken there, it's pretty neat.
The library tab contains the most important destinations in your photo library like albums,
trash, favorites, and more. Another thing that was added is new sharing controls in albums. When
you share an album the default option is to share with a specific person via their Google account,
giving you more control over who's added to the album. You do still have the option to share
albums and Google Photos via a link and can turn on or off link sharing at any time. You can also
remove someone from an album which will remove the photos and videos they added to it. Another
area of Google Photos that Google improved are the options you have when editing photos.
Google Photos now has more easy suggestions to enhance your photos making them warm cool or even
suggesting a color pop or making a photo black and white. When you use the suggested enhancement
the settings that were adjusted will turn blue and you can go to adjustments and see them and further
refine the edits portrait lighting is another recent editing addition to Google Photos for
phones like the pixel 4a and the Pixel 5. Portrait lighting gives you more control
over how your portraits look and you can add portrait lighting to regular photos that weren't
captured in portrait mode. Look for this mode to come to other pixels in the future as well.
The last new couple of things coming to Google Photos involves the memories feature. Google
Photos will now automatically create cinematic photos for you just make sure to update your app
and when one is ready it'll show up in your recent highlights at the top of your photo grid. You can
even send it as a video to friends and family as well there's also a new collage feature to
see memories in a new way like a then and now view which you can see just how much someone has grown,
perfect for viewing photos of your kids or pets. Also memories of your favorite people things like
places and activities such as baking or hiking will be rolling into your memories feed soon
as well. Well i hope you found this video helpful and informative and if you did and liked it,
make sure you hit that thumbs up button below and subscribe to the channel to see more Google
product videos like this one as well as other videos on other tech products. Well
that's going to do it for me for 6 Months Later, I'm Josh Teder, thanks for watching.