14 DAY TRIAL // In the latest spring cleaning move, among shutting down several features and services, Google also announced some changes to the free and paid storage options for Google Drive and Picasa.
For one, finally, Google is merging the free storage space in Picasa and Google Drive hopefully making it less confusing. But that's the only good news.
Until now, Picasa users got a paltry 1 GB of free storage that was separate from the 5 GB Google Drive users were getting.
Now, everyone gets the same 5 GB and both Picasa photos and everything in Google Drive will count towards the limit. In practice, it means users are getting 1 GB less free storage from Google.
That's not all, paid storage users are getting the same "benefits," free storage no longer adds up to the one you pay for, so if you sign up for a 100 GB plan you get 100 GB in total not 105 GB as before. Again, what it means is you're getting 5 GB of storage less for the same money.
That may not seem like much when you're paying for 100 GB, but it is a significant amount for those that use the 25 GB plans or those stuck with the legacy 20 GB plans.
However, users that have already filled up their free or paid storage allowances will continue to get the same amounts as they have now, thankfully.
"Google storage in Picasa and Drive will be consolidated over the next few months, so users will have five GB of free storage across both services. If you’re paying for storage, your free storage will now be counted towards your total," Google said.
"So if you buy a 100GB plan, it will give you 100GB of total storage instead of adding to what you already had. We believe this approach will make it much easier for users. For both free and paid storage, people at or near their current storage limits will have the same amount of storage after this change," it explained.