Internal Storage to Google Photos Pixel: A Guide to Unlimited Storage

Google Photos offers unlimited storage for high-quality photos and videos, but you need to set it up correctly to take advantage of this feature.

To start, you need to enable Google Photos on your Pixel device, which can be done by going to Settings > Google > Google Photos.

Once enabled, you can set Google Photos as the default storage location for your device's photos and videos. This can be done by going to Settings > Storage > Google Photos.

By doing so, you'll free up space on your internal storage and enjoy the benefits of unlimited storage on Google Photos.

Freeing up space on your Google Photos account is a breeze. You can delete local copies of photos, videos, and screenshots from your phone's internal storage by tapping "Free up space" in the Google Photos app.

This process will show you how much storage is used by files that have already been backed up to the cloud. You can then tap "Free up X MB or GB" to initiate the deletion process.

Once you've gone through this process, the local copies of your photos, videos, and screenshots will be deleted from your phone's internal storage, but you can still access them through Google Photos in the cloud.

Google Photos will automatically remove any local file that has a safely backed-up copy in the cloud, using a tool called "Free up space". This can save you tens of GBs of storage space.

To use this tool, head to the Library tab in the Google Photos app, tap Utilities, and then tap Free up space. Tap "Free up..." to delete local copies of photos.

The deletion process can take as little as three seconds or ten minutes, depending on how much is being deleted.

Here's a simple summary of the steps to free up space on your Google Photos account:

By following these simple steps, you can free up space on your Google Photos account and make room for more memories.

Google Photos offers two backup quality options: High Quality and Original Quality. High Quality uses advanced compression algorithms to reduce photo and video sizes, but may lose some pixels for larger files.

Photos above 16 MP and videos above 1080p will be scaled down to those sizes when using High Quality. This isn't a huge issue for the original Pixel, but can be noticeable for DSLRs and modern phones/cameras.

Original Quality stores photos and videos at their full, original quality, with no further compression beyond the initial JPEG compression. 4K video and high frame rates are supported with this option.

If you have a Pixel 3, you can enjoy unlimited Original Quality backups until January 31, 2022, after which it reverts to High Quality. The Pixel 5, on the other hand, only allows unlimited High Quality backups.

If you own a Pixel phone, you're in luck because all Pixel phones starting from the original Pixel until the Pixel 5 offer free, unlimited Google Photos storage.

The Pixel 3a and Pixel 4a are included in this offer, but the Pixel 5a is not, making it the first Pixel phone to lose access to unlimited Google Photos storage.

Photos backed up on Pixel phones after the Pixel 3 model are uploaded in storage saver quality, but those who own a Pixel 5 or earlier can still make use of the free backups.

Google hasn't brought back unlimited Photos storage even with the latest Pixel 7 series, which means this freebie is officially a relic of the past.

However, there's a hack that can give you access to unlimited storage on Google Photos, but it requires a rooted Android phone and will upload photos in original quality and 4K videos.