Flickr might be deleting your images

In an announcement made recently, the photo sharing site, Flickr, plans to delete millions of user images in line with their new policy to limit all free accounts to no more 1,000 images. From 5 February 2019, accounts with over 1000 images will have content actively deleted (starting with the oldest images first) until the total is back under 1,000 images. However, users can opt to sign up for a Pro account (US$49.99, and 30% off first year if you sign up before 30/11/18) which offers unlimited storage along with a number of other benefits including partner discounts with companies such as Adobe, SmugMug, and Peak Design.

In their official press release, Flickr stated: “Flickr has long offered a free plan to photographers, and we remain committed to a vibrant free offering. Free accounts will now be for a member’s 1,000 best photos or videos, regardless of size.

This means, we are no longer offering a free terabyte of storage. Unfortunately, ‘free’ services are seldom actually free for users. Users pay with their data or with their time. We would rather the arrangement be transparent."

Created in 2004, the company has had a number of owners, including Yahoo!, and current owner SmugMug, which bought the business in April this year for an undisclosed amount. Don MacAskill, the Co-Founder, CEO, and Chief Geek at SmugMug, issued a statement regarding the new changes, which can be found at this link.

Users that took full advantage of the 1TB of free storage, and want to maintain a free account, can expect to have a little bit of a headache to bring their accounts back in line given that 1TB represents anywhere between 200,000 to 500,000 images. Before the 1TB of storage was offered in 2013 by then owner, Yahoo!, free accounts on Flickr were limited to 200 public photos.

Click here to learn more about what the changes mean.

Get more stories like this delivered
free to your inbox. Sign up here.