Google Photos No Longer Offers Free Storage Space for Unsupported Videos

In 2015, Google revamped Photos app and introduced unlimited photos and videos storage. While this was a welcome feature for all, Android and iOS users had to allow the tech giant to compress the content a bit in order to use the unlimited storage space feature. In order to get the same resolution backup, Android and iOS users have to pay a premium. Adding to these muddled terms and conditions, Google has now added one more condition to this deal. Moving forward, the company states that it will count unsupported videos as storage space.

This change was revealed as a side note on the Google support site, on the unsupported video page. The side note reads, "Videos uploaded after December 6, 2018 take up storage space." This means that the new change is already in effect without any intimation to users. Google does support almost all video formats, except may be a few like VOB or RAW taken from a professional high-end device. Supported video formats includes .mpg, .mod, .mmv, .tod, .wmv, .asf, .avi, .divx, .mov, .m4v, .3gp, .3g2, .mp4, .m2t, .m2ts, .mts, and .mkv files.

This change should not affect regular smartphone users who shoot videos via their mobile devices. Those videos will continue to be stored for free, however users who indulge in storing large files shot in unsupported format will now take up storage space.

Google recently introduced new editing tools in the Photos app for iOS users, and even introduced the new Material Theme design for Android users. Earlier this year, Google even introduced a new feature that allowed users to create a movie using their memories.