What you need to know
- Amazon Drive is set to close on December 31, 2023.
- Amazon Photos should automatically save images and videos from Drive, leaving your files behind.
- January 31, 2023, will be the end of uploading to Amazon Drive, but the company will give you until December 31 to download and view any remaining files.
Amazon informed users via an email this week that it will shut down its Drive cloud storage service in 2023.
The alert informs Amazon Drive users about the closure of the service next year. Amazon Drive is a cloud storage service where users can back up their files, similar to Google Drive. The service is offered via the web, Android, and iOS, with users granted 5GB of space for free for uploading files.
Amazon explains that the company wants to "more fully focus our efforts on photos and video storage with Amazon Photos."
The company set up an FAQ page about Amazon Drive's deprecation where users can get a better understanding of what's going on. On that page, Amazon says it will remove the Drive cloud service app from Android and iOS app stores on December 31, 2023. However, nearly a full year before that (January 31, 2023), Amazon will no longer allow you to upload files to the Amazon Drive website.
The company says, "as an Amazon customer, your photos and videos in Amazon Drive have been automatically saved to Amazon Photos." Users will also have until the official closure date of Amazon Drive (December 31, 2023) to download or view any remaining files. The FAQ page also provides step-by-step instructions for grabbing your items off Amazon Drive and how to cancel your subscription to the service. The help page also says, "if you are having trouble downloading your files due to size limitations, we recommend using the Amazon Photos Desktop app to download and save your files."
While Amazon Drive isn't exactly one of the best cloud storage services, its closure means there's one less option out there. Still, users have plenty of time to prepare before they can no longer access files on the service.
