8 free Google Photos analogs

From June 1, 2021, photos and videos downloaded from the Google Photos app began to take up space on the cloud drive and share it with other files. Even if you're not the most avid photographer, the 15 gigabytes available will likely run out quickly. If you want to keep your memories for free, there isn't much choice. You can trust your photos to the following services.

1. "Yandex. Disk"

What platforms are supported: web, Android, iOS, Windows, macOS.
How much is available for free: unlimited photo from smartphone.
How much does the extra seat cost: 100 GB for 99 rubles per month, 1 TB for 300 rubles per month, 3 TB for 900 rubles per month.

The only free service of all that provides unlimited storage for photos, as Google has done in the past. True, it was not without a few nuances: unlimited does not apply to videos and only works for pictures from the smartphone gallery. But the images are uploaded to the cloud in their original quality without compression.

The app has functions for creating albums and automatically sorting into collections, although not as advanced as in Google Photos.

2. TeraBox

What platforms are supported: web, Android, iOS.
How much is available for free: 1 TB
How much does the extra seat cost: 2 TB and advanced features for 299 rubles per month.

Cloud storage from Chinese company Baidu, formerly known as Dubox. The main advantage of the TeraBox is the generous amount of disk space. The app can automatically upload photos and offers basic sorting functions. Video uploading is also supported, but in the free plan only in manual mode.

Among the shortcomings, one can single out the mediocre localization of the interface and not the most stable speed: if the uploading of data is quite fast, then the download to the device leaves much to be desired. However, the situation is much better when using a VPN.

3. Mega

What platforms are supported: web, Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android.
How much is available for free: 50 GB in the first month, then 15 GB.
How much does the extra seat cost: 400 GB for 446 rubles per month, 2 TB for 893 rubles per month, 8 TB for 1,785 rubles per month, 16 TB for 2 678 rubles per month.

Another cloud with support for automatic loading of media files from the gallery with a smartphone, which can be used to store photos. The available free Mega volume can be significantly expanded by inviting friends and receiving bonuses for installing mobile and desktop applications.

Unlike other services, Mega, in addition to the limit on the volume in the cloud, also has a traffic limit: you cannot download or upload more than 4 GB of traffic within 6 hours.

There are no smart collections, pictures are simply sorted by date. But all photos, like other files, are stored in encrypted form, and no one but you can view them.

4. Box

What platforms are supported: web, Windows, macOS, iOS, Android.
How much is available for free: 10 GB.
How much does the extra seat cost: 100 GB for 12 € per month.

Photo storage is not the Box's strongest point. Nevertheless, the service can still be used for these purposes, for example, as a backup copy for selected pictures. Box has a limit of no more than 250 MB per file in the free version, but this is not a hindrance for photos. Another inconvenience that you have to put up with is the lack of automatic image loading. Without a paid subscription, they need to be copied manually.

Try Box →

5.pCloud

What platforms are supported: web, Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android.
How much is available for free: 10 GB.
How much does the extra seat cost: 500GB for $ 48 / year or $ 175 forever, 2TB for $ 96 / year or $ 350 forever.

Swiss cloud storage with file encryption and strict privacy policy. pCloud allows you to automatically upload photos and videos from your smartphone gallery and offers basic sorting capabilities. The application has a separate section "Photos" for easy access to pictures.

Try pCloud →

6. "Cloud Mail.ru"

What platforms are supported: web, Windows, macOS, iOS, Android.
How much is available for free: 8 GB.
How much does the extra seat cost: 128 GB for 149 rubles per month, 256 GB for 229 rubles per month, 512 GB for 379 rubles per month, 1 TB for 699 rubles per month, 2 TB for 1,390 rubles per month, 4 TB for 2 690 rubles per month …

Russian cloud service from Mail.ru, which is available on all popular platforms. Not much space is offered for free, but it can also be used as spare or temporary storage. "Cloud" supports smart sorting of photos by objects and people, and can automatically upload files from a smartphone. For easy viewing, the interface has a separate "Gallery" section.

Try "Cloud Mail.ru" →

Cloud Mail.ru: Photo Vault Mail. Ru Group

7.iCloud

What platforms are supported: web, Windows, macOS, iOS.
How much is available for free: 5 GB.
How much does the extra seat cost: 50 GB - 59 rubles per month, 200 GB - 149 rubles per month, 2 TB - 599 rubles per month.

Apple's proprietary cloud, which, despite the rather meager volume in the free version, is the best solution for organizing photo storage on iPhone and iPad. ICloud Music Library is perfectly integrated with Photos on iOS and macOS, and there is a separate client for Windows. Thanks to smart sorting, pictures are automatically grouped not only by date, but also by location, people, events and other criteria.

Try iCloud →

8. OneDrive

What platforms are supported: web, Windows, macOS, iOS, Android.
How much is available for free: 5 GB.
How much does the extra seat cost: 1 TB for RUB 269 or RUB 339 per month for a personal or family subscription to Office 365, respectively.

Cloud storage from Microsoft also cannot boast of a large amount of available space on the server, but it is good at sorting photos using smart algorithms. Images are automatically grouped by location using geotagging. In addition, you can manually create albums and folders yourself.

Space in the cloud is given in the load to the subscription to Office 365, so if you have it, there should be no problems with free gigabytes.

Microsoft OneDrive Microsoft Corporation