Bad news, Amazon Prime members – one of your best perks is being taken away
Amazon has revealed it is closing its cloud storage platform in another consolidation push from the tech giant.
The company has emailed Amazon Drive customers to confirm that the service will be closing at the end of next year.
The move comes as part of Amazon’s push towards its Amazon Photos service, which will now become a central location for photo and video storage.
Amazon Drive closure
“Over the last 11 years, Amazon Drive has served as a secure cloud storage service for Amazon customers to back up their files,” the company’s email to customers read.
“On December 31, 2023, we will no longer support Amazon Drive to more fully focus our efforts on photos and video storage with Amazon Photos. We will continue to provide customers the ability to safely back up, share, and organize photos and videos with Amazon Photos.”
Users will need to download all their files by the closing date, but existing Amazon users will have had their photo and video files automatically saved to Amazon Photos.
The service will remain fully operational until December 31, 2023, but the company says that, from January 31, 2023, it will no longer support uploading files on the Amazon Drive website.
It adds that the Amazon Photos app is available on iOS, Android and desktop users now – and existing Amazon Prime members get free, unlimited full-resolution photo storage and 5GB video storage. Non-Prime members get 5GB of free storage for photos and video.
New Amazon Photos members will be able to pick from a selection of monthly and annual storage plans. The service allows users to display photos on Amazon devices such as the Fire TV, Echo Show and its Fire Tablets, and its Family Vault service allows Amazon Prime members to invite up to five members to receive “unlimited photo storage, and collect photos together”.
