Starting next month, Google Photos will end its free "High Quality" upload tier. Ahead of that, Google is making it easier to delete large videos, blurry photos, and old screenshots from your photos library to free up storage space.
Google already offers a number of tools and options to manage space in your Google Account, including an estimate of how long the current free space will last based on your usage.
Easily Delete Blurry Photos From Google Photos
Google's latest addition to Google Photos is a storage management tool that will make it easier for you to review your large videos and blurry photos that are of little use but take up precious storage space in your Google account.
The storage tool will give you three options to choose from: Large photos & videos, Blurry photos, and Screenshots. Select an option that you prefer, review the photos, and then decide whether they are worth keeping or not. Do note that this storage tool will only surface those photos and screenshots that count towards your Google account's storage.
If you have been using Google Photos for a long time and have purchased space for your Google Account through Google One, this tool could come in handy to delete all old screenshots and blurry photos that are taking up space.
"High Quality" Storage Tier Gets Renamed
In addition to the new storage tool, Google announced on The Keyword that it is renaming the "High quality" storage tier in Google Photos to "Storage saver" to make it easier to understand.
Barring the name change, there are no other changes to this tier from a quality viewpoint. Google will continue to store your photos in the "same great quality" as before, albeit all the uploaded photos and videos will now count against your 15GB Google Account storage.
If you are not happy with the upcoming storage changes to Google Photos, check out some of the top Google Photos alternatives.
Google Photos Upload Will Count Against Your Storage From June
Google is making these changes to Google Photos ahead of June 1, 2021, when it puts an end to the free "High quality" storage tier. All photos and videos that you upload to Google Photos will count against your Google account's storage from next month.
All your existing photos and videos backed up to the service will remain intact and not count towards your account's storage, though. If you are a Google Pixel owner, you can continue to enjoy unlimited storage on Google Photos for your photos and videos.