Local Guides Photos Taking Over Drive's Space

[Sufian_Imon]

Hi everyone,

Being at level 7, I uploaded little over 1k photos at Google Local Guides. I have noticed that the weight of these photos are actually killing my 3.4GB space in the drive. Given that I contributed my photos to Google for free and of course, as a tech giant, Google used those photos commercially as well. In return, I am losing spaces in Google Drive. Is it acceptable from a company like Google? What kind of nonsensical system is this? Is there anyone else who is suffering from the same problem? Raise your voice so that Google Local Guides changes its policy.

Regards,

Abu Sufian Imon

[Haseeb · Accepted solution]

Hello & Assalamoalaikom @Sufian_Imon Brother !

The issue you are facing is a known issue & google has provided unlimited space for our photos & videos.
It's just that you need to logged in to your account settings to recover back your space. Please follow this google photos settings link to recover back your drive storage.
Make sure you select 'Free Unlimited Storage' in the settings.

Once selected please click on recover storage. The rest will be done by the automated system & you will see the drive storage available for you.


Hope this helps. If you need any further help you can PM me here.

Regards

[iyudhi]

Just adding to @Haseeb's comment - When you followed the direction and changed the setting to 'High Quality', only photos that are taken after you changed the setting will not affect your Drive quota. The previous photos taken that have been uploaded will still occupy the space and you'll have to remove and re-upload them manually.

It appears I was wrong. If you changed the setting, it will affect all the photos you uploaded, per help page of the Google Photos. Thanks for the correction @Teejai

[Haseeb]

@iyudhi Thanks 🙂

[Teejai]

I'd just like to add to this as well. I recently lost all of my drive space as well at the end of the "free 1TB for two years"  and had all of my google photos uploaded. Lots of these were taken on a DSLR withJPEG and a RAW image. My camera doesn't even shoot that larger image at roughly 25Mb a shot. Considering we are shooting so many photos for Google and google wants us to upload the best quality possible it was very disappointing to have to move from original to "high quality", but I had no other choice. I can't justify the ongoing cost of paying for google drive space just to keep another online copy of my raw images. I don't want the 1TB back, but a little something to help us keep our original photos would be nice, considering we are doing it for google. 

[Teejai]

@iyudhi  ummm no. I did this and all of my previous photos were converted to high quality. I didn't have to remove and re-add anything. It did take a very very long time to process though, probably 1.5 days. In the end though photos were taking up zero drive space. 

[iyudhi]

@Teejai My apologies. I checked the help page for Google Photos and you are right. Never knew that before. Thanks for clarifying 🙂

I will edit my reply above.

[Haseeb]

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@Teejai wrote:

@iyudhi  ummm no. I did this and all of my previous photos were converted to high quality. I didn't have to remove and re-add anything. It did take a very very long time to process though, probably 1.5 days. In the end though photos were taking up zero drive space. 

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That's what happen to me as well, I didn't remove or upload anything but the system it everything by itself & yes it take ages for the process to be completed depending on the size your photos are conquering 🙂

[Sufian_Imon]

Many thanks, dear Haseeb. It seems to be working. If I face any further difficulty, I will get back to you.

[Haseeb]

You are always welcome brother Sufian @Sufian_Imon