How Stable Is Your FREE Online Photo Storage?

Being a photographer, I tend to back up my photos in multiple locations. I have them on my laptop, a backup USB drive, then another USB drive that is stored in a safe. I sometimes save my best photos online on Flickr since I have about 2 terabytes in storage, as well as my other online portfolio site of 500px.

All of these locations are part of my process to have some piece of mind if in case something goes wrong. Well today I saw in article on WebDesignLedger where they were claiming that Yahoo is downsizing. You can read the full article here. My concern with this feels falls first to my “free” account with Flickr. Yahoo purchased Flickr in 2005, so about 11 years ago. I won’t go into the changes and improvements of Flickr since, but the ability to store 2tb of photos online is great, I am aware that Yahoo’s financial performance has been declining so how they decide to deal with the picture website will be closely watched.

For those of you like me, it may be a good time to take stock of what you have loaded to Flickr, and be sure you have your originals saved somewhere in your library. If you don’t be sure to download your photos and save them as well as connect with your followers on other means like their other social media websites and online groups.

Here are a list of alternatives you may want to consider should you need another online repository:

Google Photos – While this offers unlimited “high quality” photo uploads. Uploading RAW files will count agains a 1.5Gb storage quota.

Amazon Cloud Storage – Offers unlimited cloud storage for about $60.00 a year. There is an inexpensive option for still unlimited photos, but a 5gb limit on video files. This plan is about $12.00 a year.

Dropbox – While you do get up to 5g of free storage, you will then need to pay for an upgraded annual account. $10 a month for up to 1tb, or $15 a month for unlimited storage and managed file and folder permission controls.