In this article we will present you with a complete list of storage services that offer free cloud space.
The aggregation of all these cloud storage services , whether for files or photos, will help you choose easily and quickly which service meets your needs. Let's get started
The Big Names
First on our list are the “big names,” meaning the ones that offer a decent amount of space. You’ve probably heard of most of them, but it doesn’t hurt to take a look.
Dropbox
Free storage: 2GB plus bonuses
Paid plans: $10/month or $100/year for 1TB
One of the most popular options for cloud storage is Dropbox, which maintains a loyal customer base thanks to its fast apps, both for mobile and desktop, and a variety of efficient tools. The free storage is relatively small, at around 2GB, although users can earn permanent upgrades if they refer friends: 500GB at a time, with a maximum of 16GB.
Box.com
Free storage: 10GB Paid plan: $10/month for 100GB Box is a popular alternative to Dropbox, offering more free storage. Its apps are available for mobile and desktop platforms, and it offers a lot of services. Its free individual accounts offer a generous 10GB, but you can only upload files up to 250MB per file.
Google Drive
Free storage: 15GB shared
Paid plans: $5/month for 30GB, $1/month for unlimited space (for one user)
All Google users have access to shared Google Drive , which is bundled with all tools, including Gmail and Google Docs, for a combined total of 15GB. That seems like a lot of space, but it can fill up quickly if you're an active Gmail email user. Photo storage, however, is unlimited using Google Photos.
MEGA
Free storage: 50GB
Paid plans: $5/month for 200GB, $10/month for 2TB, $20/month for 4TB, $30/month for 8TB
MEGA offers an extremely generous 50GB of storage, although there is a 10GB upload/download limit per 30 minutes. MEGA is built for hosting and sharing files, but its web interface lacks some of the more advanced tools offered by its competitors. However, it offers truly gigantic data storage in both its free and paid plans at a low cost.
Microsoft OneDrive
Free Storage: 5GB
Paid Plans: $2/month for 50GB, $7/month for 1TB
Microsoft's all-in-one cloud storage solution, OneDrive, offers 5GB of free space for all users. The apps are also available for other platforms, and the more expensive plans come with a free Office 365 subscription.
Sync
Free Storage: 5GB
Paid Plans: $5/month for 1TB, $8/month for 2TB
Sync backup system as well as easy sharing and collaboration. It offers standard folder synchronization tools in both the mobile and desktop apps.
Free cloud storage for photos only
These services are primarily – and sometimes exclusively – for photos in various formats. Usually when they offer users a large or unlimited space to upload photos, they are in compressed quality, with the “original” ones only available in paid plans.
- Amazon Prime Photos: Unlimited free photo storage for Prime subscribers. Plans for non-Prime users start at $12.
- Canon Irista: 15GB of free photo storage (even for non-Canon camera owners). Paid plans start at $2.25.
- Cluster: Cluster currently offers free and apparently unlimited space for full-size photos with built-in group sharing tools.
- Facebook: Facebook has no limit on the number of photos posted to users' accounts, but all images are compressed.
- Flickr: Its free plan offers 1TB of space for full-quality photos.
- Fujifilm X World: Fuji's official storage service offers 5GB of free space for maximum quality photos that you can then share.
- Google Photos: Gives you unlimited space for compressed photos, but “original quality” files count against your Google Drive space.
- Instagram: You have unlimited space to upload photos to Instagram, but not particularly high quality.
- Ipernity: This is a photo-based social network that only offers 200MB of free space to users. Unlimited, ad-free “Ipernity Club” accounts start at $10 per month.
- Nikon Space Image: Nikon gives 2GB of storage for full-quality photos to all users, but owners of recent Nikon cameras get an upgrade to 20GB.
- Photobucket: The space for uploading maximum quality photos is limited to only 2GB.
- Piccam: For maximum quality photos, you can get up to 15 GB for free accounts. With unlimited storage, the service is available for $5 per month.
- Shoebox: Unlimited free compressed photo storage, with full quality upgrades for $5 per month.
- Shutterfly: Unlimited free space for photos, with a charge for photo prints available through the website and apps.
- Sony PlayMemories: Unlimited storage space for automatically uploading photos from Sony mobile phones and cameras.
Photos are perhaps one of the most important things to back up, considering you can never recreate them again. So you should be sure where you are storing your precious family photos and what security each service provides.
The "rest"
If all of the above is not enough for you, then see below every other cloud storage service available on the internet that offers a free plan (or storage included with another service).
- 4shared: 15GB free space with a 2GB per file limit. It has an app for all mobile platforms and desktop. Its paid plan costs $78 per year for 100 GB. (thanks to user freedom)
- Amazon Cloud Drive: All users can get 5GB of free storage.
- Apple iCloud : 5GB of free storage with any Apple device.
- ASUS WebStorage: 5GB of free storage, no ASUS devices required, but there is a daily traffic limit of 500MB.
- BT Cloud: If you are in England and a British Telecom subscriber then you can get 5GB-500GB of free storage space based on the price of your service package.
- Degoo: Encrypted, synchronized backups (not standard cloud access) with 100GB of free storage. Premium accounts offer 2TB of backup space for $10.
- ElephantDrive: 2GB free storage.
- FlipDrive: The free account gives you 10GB of storage, but each file is limited to 25MB.
- Hidrive: Free 5GB of storage with no file size or traffic limits.
- HubiC: European service with 25GB of free storage. The application it offers and API support seem to be poor.
- iDrive: 5GB of free storage with extra space for inviting friends. Integrates with OneDrive and Office 365.
- Jottacloud: European storage with 5GB free access. Unlimited upgrade costs only 7.5 euros per month.
- Jumpshare: Desktop-focused file sharing service. Free accounts are limited to 2GB of storage with a file limit of 250MB each.
- MediaFire: long-standing service with 10GB of free storage, unlimited bandwidth, and a 4GB limit for each file.
- Memopal: Desktop service that offers 3GB of free storage for backup and synchronization.
- MiMedia: 10GB of storage on free accounts with apps available on desktop, Android, and iOS.
- MozyHome: Free accounts start at 2GB plus bonuses for inviting other users.
- OpenDrive: 5GB of free storage plus a comprehensive sync service and task manager. File limit 100MB maximum.
- OwnDrive: SSL/TLS encrypted storage with only 1GB for free accounts. Free browsing tools, a music player, RSS reader, and more are provided.
- pCloud: Offers “up to 20GB” of storage for free accounts. That’s 10GB by default and another 10GB available from friend invitations. Facebook and Instagram accounts can be automatically backed up.
- SafeCopy: 3GB of free storage with no individual file limits. Upgrades at competitive annual prices.
- Strato Hidrive: European service based on free accounts of 5GB of storage with an email containing a backup attachment.
- Syncplicity: This service focuses on 10GB of free storage for individual personal accounts. The size of each file is unlimited, but for more advanced features you need to go for a paid plan.
- Verizon Cloud: 2GB of free space to back up your smartphones. It has competitive pricing on its paid plans, but it's only available to Verizon customers.
- Weiyun: China-based service with 10GB of free storage. There was an earlier report of "10TB of storage," but that doesn't seem to be the case.
- Yandex.Disk: Russia-based service with 10GB of free storage and up to 10GB of bonus storage if you participate in “special offers.” Includes photo viewing and sharing tools.
- Zoolz Cloud Archive: Service that focuses on creating backups with 7GB of free space, with the ability to share with two computers and with apps for all mobile devices.
Cloud storage seems to be a particularly volatile market. During this research, we found several services that were launched and shut down within just a few years of existence. So it’s best not to trust important files or photos exclusively to a single service or location. If you’ve found other cloud or photo storage services that offer free storage (and aren’t free for a trial period), and we haven’t included it on the list, or if any of the above services have shut down, leave a comment below and we’ll update the article.
