Are Blog Photos At Risk In New Policy?

No. (But.)

Google's announcement of new limits to Google Photos does not directly affect Blogger, for most people.

In particular, the new policy does not appear to touch free unlimited photos on Blogger.

But if you regularly insert images from Google Photos, there are a few things you should understand.

Google's Big Change

Google announced

Starting June 1, 2021, any new photos and videos you upload will count toward the free 15 GB of storage that comes with every Google Account or the additional storage you’ve purchased as a Google One member.

The storage, or quota, comes with each Google account. Gmail, Drive, and some extra-large images in Photos count against the quota.

Fill the quota with any combination of files, and you won't be able to add any more unless you delete some files or buy more storage from Google.

In a separate announcement, Google warns that after June 1

• If you're inactive in one or more of these services for two years (24 months), Google may delete the content in the product(s) in which you're inactive.
• Similarly, if you're over your storage limit for two years, Google may delete your content across Gmail, Drive and Photos.

Photos in Blogger

Unless there is something that Google is not telling us, the change does not affect Blogger for most people.

Uploading from your device into Blogger has nothing to do with Photos. Blogger stashes these image files in a separate service called the Album Archive.

As far as we know today, Archive photos remain free and unlimited.

Inserting photos from Photos creates a copy of the selected photos in the Archive. Anything you do with Photos after that won't affect your blog.

Inserting photos that are in Photos using "by URL" links directly to the original image file. So, if you delete the image from Photos, you will delete it from your blog.

But most people don't do that.

Google Policy Details

Google's new policy will only apply to images uploaded to Photos after May 30, 2021. It will not apply retroactively to files already there.

Images uploaded from Pixel devices (phones and Chromebooks made by Google) will be exempt even after that date, except for very large photos uploaded at "original" quality.

Very large images in Photos already count towards the quota. However, an option exists to convert those images to "high" quality, which do not count. (And "high" quality is plenty good enough for Blogger.)

Ways the Change Could Hurt Your Blog

You might decide to prune your images and files on Google (in Photos, Gmail, and Drive) to increase your available storage. Links to any of these files in your blog will become dead.

If you do want to shrink your uploaded footprint in response to the new policy, note that deleting files that don't count towards your storage quota will not help. 

So deleting images from the Archive, or "high"-quality Photos files, will have no effect on your quota.

For very large "original" images, you have the option of converting them to "high" quality in Photos. This will have no effect on your blog no matter how you are inserting them there.

It does sound as though the 2-year requirement could be of concern for blogs that link directly to affected files that Google deletes due to inactivity. But again, Archive files are not affected.

The Google announcement has a lot more information about this change, including links to tools for converting photos to the free "high-quality" status.

That's what we know today.

The image of a burning photograph is courtesy of PH romano on Unsplash, ©phromano.