Image and video hosting service Flickr will start deleting photos from its platform starting today, February 5. This was announced by the company last year in November, when it was bought over by professional photo hosting service SmugMug. On that day, the platform announced that it will be restricting the limit for free users to 1000 photos from January 8 and they will not be able to upload new photos or videos if they already have crossed the limit of 1,000 media files. Previously, the limit was set at 1TB.
“Any items over the 1,000-upload limit will be at risk of deletion, starting with the oldest of the items. Photos licensed through Creative Commons before November 1, 2018 will not be deleted, even for accounts over the 1,000 limit,” said the Flickr blogpost.
If you are one of those users who has countless number of photos on that platform and want to save them, follow these steps:
1. Open flickr.com and login with your credentials
2. Place the cursor on ‘You’ and click on ‘Camera Roll’.
3. Go date vise, and click on ‘Select All’. You can select maximum of 500 pictures.
4. Click on ‘Download’ from the bottom of the screen.
5. Click on ‘Create zip file’
6. Look for the bell icon on the top right corner and wait for zip file to create
7. Click on ‘download zip file’
Readers must note, that this move from the company to restrict the number of files is to promote the paid membership — Flickr Pro, which costs $5.99 a month (or $4.17 a month if you pay annually). Andrew Stadlen, VP of Product at Flickr, in an announcement explaining the move, said, “First, and most crucially, the free terabyte largely attracted members who were drawn by the free storage, not by engagement with other lovers of photography. This caused a significant tonal shift in our platform, away from the community interaction and exploration of shared interests that makes Flickr the best shared home for photographers in the world.” He also added, “Giving away vast amounts of storage creates data that can be sold to advertisers, with the inevitable result being that advertisers’ interests are prioritised over yours. Reducing the free storage offering ensures that we run Flickr on subscriptions, which guarantees that our focus is always on how to make your experience better.”
