Flickr is deleting free users’ photos in storage cull

In principle, Flickr users have two options. One is to switch to the paid account for $49.99 per year. The other option is to download the photos before they get deleted from Flickr.

How to download photos from Flickr

On the one hand, this can be done via Flickr’s gallery. There you can download each of your pictures individually or mark several of them, and then save them with one click into a zip file. But if you have a lot of photos on Flickr and have organized them into albums, you should proceed differently. In the album view, you can select whole folders with one click and then download them in the same way, as a zip file.

In both cases: you must act quickly because Flickr is beginning with the deletion of the pictures immediately, which exceed the exemption limit of 1,000 photos for free accounts. So if you don’t want Flickr to delete the surplus images from your account, you should act immediately.

Alternatives to Flickr

After downloading your pictures, it seems most logical the upload them to another service. Google Photos is especially suitable for Android users. There you can store as many photos as you like, as long as you can do without the original size and want to accept a compression that is hardly noticeable in practice. Other cloud alternatives where your photos are in good hands would be OneDrive from Microsoft, Dropbox or Box.com. EyeEm can also be an exciting option, especially if you want to earn money with your pictures. At EyeEm you can also offer selected pictures for sale, and that can – provided you have the right motifs – make the cash register ring.

Have you saved your photos on Flickr? Then you’d better see if they’re all still there!