When you are a blogger, the key to attracting viewers to your blog post is the photo that you use. You spend a lot of time to look for that perfect photo. So over a period of time, you see that your computer is overflowing with pictures. And then you look for free online photo storage options. Moreover, many of us use different devices to access the photos. Therefore, it is convenient for us to store the images at a centrally located place and access these as and when required. Online storage helps you to free up precious space in your hard drive.
Here I will be telling you about some amazing photo storage sites which can address your needs.
Features to look for while choosing free storage
When you are choosing free online photo storage, there are certain features you need to keep in mind.
What is the format: Look closely at the file formats of your pics. If these are .jpg or .png files, then any cloud storage will be good for you. But, if you are a photographer or a graphics artist, and the files are of .tiff format you need to be choosy.
Speed: Do check the upload and download speed of your network connection. If you do not have high-speed internet, uploading can take ages. Therefore, take this into account when you are choosing a service.
Security: Look for the security being provided by the site. It is always better to store your photos and videos in an encrypted version so that you can have both privacy and protection.
Mobile access: If you need the photos on your mobile, as and when you need, look for a service that gives you a mobile app as well.
Do not just jump to a conclusion, go through the sites and choose the one that meets your requirements.
7 Best Free Online Photo Storage Options
- Google Photos: The first one on my list is Google photos. If you already have a Google account, it is easy to access this feature. This one is easy to use, convenient, and also has an auto-upload option, which is handy. You can create albums to organize your pictures. It also has a cool feature: “The Assistant”. It makes animation, movies, and collages from your photos. And a small photo editor as well where you can crop, resize, brighten or increase the saturation of your photos. With unlimited storage, it is one of the best online photo storage options for you.
The Downside: It has limited desktop editing features. You need to have a web browser to manage the photos. You can share photos with your friends by using a link but they need to have a google photos account if they want to edit, share or make changes to them.
- Dropbox: This is an excellent free online photo storage. You can store different files, including photos. You get a shareable link to a particular photo or a folder. Dropbox provides you with a storage space of 2 GB. But you can increase the space if you invite your friends to use it. It is easy to find your stored files and also super-easy to access these from different devices. Dropbox has an additional feature known as Dropbox paper. Here you can create notes, share it with peers, collaborate, and design a project. This gives additional benefits because you can keep all your creative works in one place.
Google Photos
The Downside: Free service offers only 2GB storage space and you need to upgrade to store more photos. Upgradation is expensive.
- Shoebox: This one functions like Dropbox. You need to download Shoebox to your computer and get to store photos. It provides unlimited storage and helps you to declutter your PC freeing storage space. Once you upload photos to Shoebox, you can access these from any device. It provides safe and secure storage while maintaining privacy.
The Downside: The unlimited storage offer is meant for photos only and not videos. You get only a 15 minute backup of videos.
- Imgur: When I started to learn photo editing, I looked for an online storage which will let me store and access my creations whenever I wanted to post these on various forums, groups, or boards. It was then I came across Imgur and instantly liked it. Imgur lets me store pics and provides me with different embedded links to post it on different forums, social media or bulletin boards. This one has a very easy-to-navigate user interface. And with a mobile app, it is very convenient.
Imgur for photo sharing on various sites
The Downside: Imgur does not support Photoshop files with .PSD extensions. Supports .jpegs file but size has to be 20MB maximum and for .png it is 5MB. Any .png file exceeding 5MB will automatically be converted to .jpg.
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- iDrive: This one provides you with multiple device backup. Get the backup of your mobiles, pc, iPad, and Mac into a single account. iDrive provides excellent security features with 256-bit AES encryption and the security key is not stored in any of its servers. This means, not even the staff of iDrive will ever have access to your storage. Amazing! Its basic plan includes 5 GB of free space and if you need more space, you can always upgrade.
The Downside: It does not have a user-friendly interface. It also tends to slow down your PC and the backup performance is not encouraging even with a high-speed internet connection.
- OneDrive: If you are a Windows 10 user, you will be happy with Microsoft’s cloud storage: OneDrive. Very easy to navigate and has features similar to its arch-rival Google Drive. It also has an auto-upload feature making it easy to store photos on the go. It provides 15 GB of free space and you can upgrade to a paid version if you need more. Moreover, its paid versions are cheaper compared to paid versions of Google Drive. This can be a very good free online photo storage for you if you are a fan of Microsoft products.
OneDrive From Microsoft
The Downside: Security is the key concern area for OneDrive users. Microsoft products are always the main targets of hackers, so It is advisable to use strong passwords and follow the security procedure and guidelines provided by Microsoft. Moreover, Microsoft reserves the right to scan the photos you upload to check for “objectionable content” and that compromise on your privacy.
- Tinypic: Tinypic has features similar to Imgur. This is a product from Photobucket. Here, you do not have to create an account to store, share, or sort your pictures. It provides you with a simple URL which you can use anywhere to share your picture. Adding tags to pics will help other users to find your photos. Like Imgur, this one is an excellent free online photo storage site for uploading and sharing photos, especially if you are active on various bulletin boards in different forums. Additionally, you can upload videos up to 5 minutes in length. And if your requirement is less, Tinypic will meet it very well.
The Downside: There is no privacy for your uploaded images. Also, the uploaded file size is relatively small. And the video that you upload has to be only 100MB in size.
As a newbie blogger, it is better for you to go for a free version of any of the services mentioned above. As your needs increase, you can always opt for a paid version. Also go through the features listed above, before you take a decision. Now that you know about the so many free online photo storage options, what will you do with all those photos? Of course, you will want to edit these to create beautiful images and share with your friends. Check out some free design tools to create awesome photos.
I have listed the best online photo storage sites that I have come across. Do you know any other which offers a great service? Tell me about it.
17 Comments
Very useful info!
Thanks for the informative post. I’m going to use drop box
This was great. My phone is always running low on storage because of all the million photos I refuse to delete.
Thank you for sharing. Definitely going to download these.
Very interesting information. Thank you!
This was great. My phone is always running low on storage because of the million photos I refuse to delete.
Thank you for sharing this, I am definitely going to download one of these. 🙂
This article is really helpful. I’ve heard of some of these, but I’ll definitely look into some of these.
I’ve tried using Google photos, but I have had problems with uploading photos from my computer. Sometimes when I upload pictures, it skips some of the pictures and doesn’t let me see which photos it didn’t upload. Anyone else have this issue?
If your pics sizes are small, say, 40, 50KB, then you can upload 5-6 pics at a time. But if these are 1 or 2 MB then upload 1 or 2 at a time. This I am speaking from my own experience. Google photos have not set any limit. Once uploaded, refresh the page to see if all photos are there or not.
I knew about google & dropbox but rest are all new for me. Thanks for information it is very helpful
I have been using Google Photos since it is so easy to sync with an android device. But thanks for letting me aware of options other than Dropbox. I sometimes wish I could get a Pixel phone so that I can use unlimited Google storage. 😅
Needed this!!! was helpful. thanks for sharing!!!
Great info!
This is great! Like others, I’m a bit of a pic hoarder. I didn’t even consider the possibility of using these. Like you said, this could work great for photos and creations meant specifically for a blog as well.
Solid information. Apart from DropBox, never heard about others. Thank you for giving such detailed reviews of each.
I am constantly out of storage space because of all the pics!! Now I can narrow down the places I can use for free photo storage, thank you for writing this up!!
Very informative article..
I have several online storage accounts, but as you’ve said, these fill up quickly. So, I also have 3 LaCie external drives, but they are expensive and have to be attached to my MacBook Pro in order to access my files. However, as a blogger and vlogger, I have to be able to store quite a lot of files. Thanks for sharing on an important topic.
External drives are OK. But not very convenient. We all need something at our fingertips. Cloud service is the best provided there is high internet speed.