When Google launched its Google Photos cloud storage, not to be confused with the app of the same name, it was considered the ultimate way to save space on your phone and preserve your digital memories almost forever. It has a fairly generous supply of almost unlimited storage space for photos, provided it is uploaded only in high quality. Nothing lasts forever as they say, and it looks like Google is revising its earlier statements in favor of more room for a Google One subscription.
To be honest, Google does have the right to change any policy or feature it has, of course within reason and with prior notice. Nor has it made quantifiable demands for a reason, and some things are open to interpretation and subject to change as needed.
Half a decade ago, Google claimed that high-quality photos boast almost identical visual quality as their original quality. The goal then was to encourage users to compress their original photos to take advantage of Google Photo’s unlimited storage offer. From 1 June this year, however, even high-quality photos will count in your cloud storage and you will easily reach your 15 GB quota without paying for an extra storage entry.
Google is now reportedly sending emails that are actually trying to push Google Photos users to upload even larger photos of original quality rather than high quality. The image above compares the difference between original (left) and high (right) features, and clearly shows that the visual quality is not nearly identical. Considering the high quality upload, you can delete the original photos on your phone by default, which means you will irreversibly damage your original photos.
On the one hand, it may not be representative of all high-quality photos, and some users may not even notice the difference. On the other hand, these changes have led some people to suspect that they’re Google’s intentions to dock people now for more Google Drive storage, after being linked to Google Photos years ago.