Now that most of us have extremely high-quality cameras on our phones, we’re documenting more of our daily lives than at any time in history.
Saving all of those photos and videos for posterity takes up a lot of space in the form of computer memory. That’s where cloud storage comes in.
In this article, we’ll take a look at where you can get free cloud storage and just how much storage you can get without spending a single dollar.
This article was updated in July 2023 and I review it every three months. Detailed notes on all updates can be found here.
The Best Places To Store Your Photos and Videos in the Cloud for Free
When you shoot photos and videos on your phone, those images take the form of data. In many cases, people accumulate so much data that they run out of memory on their phones and even on their home computers or laptops.
With cloud storage, you can upload that data to a third party, which will then host it in the cloud.
The “cloud” is basically a collection of data centers that could be located anywhere. Those data centers can host far more data than any person could even fathom storing locally.
For easy reference, this chart shows our top free cloud storage picks and how much space you get from each. All of them offer additional storage for a fee, so we’ve included that information as well.
| Provider | Free Space Offered | Additional Space Upgrade Options |
|---|---|---|
| Google One | 15 GB | - 100 GB for $1.99/month - 200 GB for $2.99/month - 2 TB* for $9.99/month |
| Media Fire | 10 GB | - 1 TB for $5.83/month |
| pCloud | 10 GB | - 500 GB for $199/lifetime membership - 2 TB for $399/lifetime membership - 10 TB for $1,190/lifetime membership |
| Microsoft OneDrive | 5 GB | - 100 GB for $19.99/year - 1 TB for $69.99/year |
| Sync.com | 5 GB | - 2 TB for $8/month - 6 TB for $20/month |
| Amazon Photos | 5GB (Prime Members get more free storage) | - 100 GB for $1.99/month - 1 TB for $6.99/month - 2 TB for $11.99/month |
| Apple iCloud | 5 GB for owners of Apple products 1 GB for everyone else | - 50 GB for $0.99/month - 200 GB for $2.99/month - 2 TB for $9.99/month |
*1 TB = 1,000 GB
Here are the cloud storage options that let you store the most photos and videos for free.
1. Google One
We lead off our list with Google One, which offers a whopping 15 GB of free cloud storage just for signing up for a Google account. For perspective, that’s enough space to hold around 9,000 photographs.
Google One allows you to upload, share and access your files on any device, from anywhere in the world.
Google Drive is another cloud storage option worth checking out. With a free account, you can store up to 15 GB of photos and videos. You can also upgrade to Google Workspace for as low as $6/month per user with 30GB of storage.
2. MediaFire
MediaFire lets you store up to 10 GB of any kind of file for free (up to 4GB per file). It also allows you to access the files from anywhere and share them via email, link or social media.
Downloads of those files are ad-supported, though. So if you find advertisements annoying, that’s something to consider.
3. pCloud
PCloud offers 10 GB of free storage and claims to be used by people working for Nike, Twitter, Coke and dozens of other high-profile companies.
4. Microsoft OneDrive
Tech behemoth Microsoft offers 5 GB of free cloud storage through its OneDrive Basic plan. The plan promises a “lightning-fast search” of your files and a “premium web-based experience” when you access your files with Office apps.
5. Sync.com
Sync.com offers 5 GB of storage for free and promises that you can access your files from anywhere, using any device.
Sync claims to have “end-to-end” encryption to protect your privacy and offers other security features like the ability to control permissions for access to your files.
6. Amazon Photos
Amazon Photos offers 5GB of storage for photos. If you’re an Amazon Prime member, you’ll have access to even more free storage.
Prime members can store an unlimited number of photos and 5GB of video at no additional cost. If you aren’t a Prime Member, you can still store up to 5GB of any file type, but you won’t be able to store unlimited photos, according to the website.
The free storage can be used to store photos or videos on Amazon Photos and other types of files on Amazon Drive. Here are the most common file types stored on each platform, according to Amazon’s website:
Amazon Photos:
- JPEG
- PNG
- MP4, etc.
Amazon Drive:
- DOCX
- ZIP
- JPEG
- PNG
- MP4, etc.
7. Apple iCloud
Apple’s iCloud is another free storage option that comes with a catch. If you’re the owner of an Apple product, you automatically get 5 GB of free cloud space.
Even if you don’t own an Apple product, you can still sign up for 1 GB of free space with a web-only access account.
Final Thoughts
There are a lot of services out there that will provide you with free cloud storage space for your photos and videos.
If you take advantage of one or more of these options and use them in combination, you could have all the space you need without shelling out a dime.
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Article Updates
- July 10, 2023: Updated pricing for Microsoft OneDrive
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