The trick to have free storage from your main account

Google photos appeared almost 10 years agoand at this time it has become the default application to see and store photos of many users in our country, when pre -installed in the vast majority of mobiles sold in Spain. However, at that time we have seen some important changes.

In addition to the additions of characteristics and changes in the interface, five years ago Google announced that it eliminated what was the best provision of this application: unlimited storage. Google Photos would no longer allow you to have as many photos and videos as we would like for freeand a series of payment rates were established. But there is an option for Use several linked free accounts and save us money.

One remained Costless option, with 15 GBthat at that time we might think that it was enough for an average user, but that currently, with great resolution cameras and videos in 4K, it is more than likely to be very short in the medium term. What not many people know is that several accounts can be joined with each other.

Payment options

Many users have ended up paying By Google One, more for the limitation of space in photos than for having run out of space in Google Drive or Gmail. Do not forget that Google One’s space is shared among all Google ecosystem applications.

The rates of this subscription begin at 1.99 euros per month For the version that gives us 100 GB of storage (although there are cheaper experiments in other countries), although it can be saved a bit if we pay it annually, in a single payment of 19.90 euros. But 100 GB is an amount that is not uncommon for us to also be short.

In that case we will have to opt for more expensive and more space options, which can also have added functions, such as those that They integrate the most advanced artificial intelligence language modelslike Google Gemini Advanced. It is even possible to create a relative to share storage.

Hacking the system

To try to solve this inconvenience, many users have launched on Open Source applications, alternatives to Google photos, and others have opted for the Amazon application, Amazon photos, although with the problem of Not being able to store videos for free and unlimited.

Other users have opted for Eliminate WhatsApp backupin an attempt to have more available space, and others have maintained it, but in a different Google account, created only for it. You can also compress all the photos that we had uploads, to gain some space. They are simple actions but that many people seem complicated and in the end they do not.

Finally, it is possible to create a second account in which to continue uploading photos for free, and alternate them in the Google photos itself. This can be a bit cumbersome for less advanced userssince although changing account and configuring it is not difficult, it is not something super obvious either.

All photos together

The problem of this last solution is that there are two separate profiles, so the photos we have taken so far are in the original account, and the new ones that we do will be in the new account. This may seem a minor evil for many, but for example For the elderly it is an inconvenience Because they believe that the images have been erased, they do not find them, etc.

However, Google photos has a function that serves to link different accounts And, although it is not intended for this use we are talking about, it can be useful. This is the option that is in the Google photos adjustments, to which we arrive by clicking on the avatar with our photo or the initial in the upper right corner.

Once there we click on Photo settings and then in Shared and then in Share with collaborator. There we can make the photos we take are shared with another account, and that is where we will put the secondary account. We have to configure this function so that all the images are shared, and without concrete dates, in order to access them completely. In the secondary account we must approve the sharing the photos with the main one, for security reasons, although it is only done once. And we will have to activate the self -guarded option of the photos of that new account, which They will not occupy space in our main account.

Yes indeed, We have to make the backups of the new images make in the second accountwhich is the one that has space, and then use the main one only as a viewfinder, since they will appear in our gallery without occupying space. And that is the biggest advantage, which we will have many more photos and videos available but without counting on our storage space, since it will count on the secondary account.

This is not limited to a second account, and We can do it with several accountsincreasing in 15 GB our available space every time we do it. The only thing to remember is to link those new accounts with our main one, which is from where we can see and edit and look for images. Because yes, all these functions are available in our main account, not having to go to secondary account at all, which is convenient and an advantage that provides comfort.

For now Google did not want to establish limits in the use of this characteristicwith the number of elements that we can share, and hopefully it does not. However, it is something that can be done for years but that many people do not know.