This weekend is your last chance to backup all of your pictures and videos on Google Photos for free

Pictures from your baby’s first birthday. Old photos of grandparents long gone. Videos from your wedding day. If you have a lot of digital pictures and videos scattered around your various computers and hard drives, you’ll want to back them up.

And this Memorial Day weekend is your last chance to back them up with a reputable service, absolutely free.

Google Photos launched in May 2015. Over the past five years, more than 4 trillion photos to the platform. This whole time, users could upload their photos and videos to the cloud service as backup — albeit, at a slightly lower quality than the original media file — and have peace of mind, at no cost.

However, late last year, Google announced that the free ride was coming to an end. Starting on June 1st, every Google Photos user will receive just 15GB of storage space for free. 

Any media you upload to the service after the first of the month that goes above those free 15GB will require a paid subscription plan. Those subscriptions will start at $1.99 a month for 100GB. That may sound cheap, but remember, as the photos and videos accumulate as you upload more over time, you’ll probably find yourself having to upgrade to a more expensive plan. 

However, Google isn’t counting any of the files you’ve already uploaded or any photos and videos you will upload before June 1 against that new Google Photos quota. If you upload any pictures or videos you take up until June 1, storing them on the service won’t cost you a dime.

So, how do you upload to Google Photos if you haven’t already?

Sign in to your Google account and head over to “” in your web browser. It’s as easy as dragging and dropping your pics and videos right onto the page. You can also download the Google Photos and upload photos from your desktop or laptop in the background while you do other things on the computer. Users can download the Google Photos to easily upload content from their mobile devices and tablets too.

The one exception to the changing Google Photos plans are for existing Google Pixel phones. While future versions of Google’s smartphone line will also have to pay for Google Photos storage, the current models will continue to get free unlimited storage, at varying photo quality depending on which phone you own. 

So, if you don’t have a Pixel phone 1 through 5, hunker down and take advantage of the three-day holiday weekend. Break the hard drives out of the desk drawer and start uploading all your family photos and videos before it’ll cost you.