Welcome to June! After a cold and wet Memorial Day weekend, I think we are all ready for some lovely summer weather.

As of June 1st, Google Photos has stopped offering free unlimited photo storage, so that is the topic of my first article. Next, how to share your Microsoft 365 subscription. And finally, a quarterly Facebook roundup with links to some very interesting articles.

With Massachusetts fully opening up, it will be nice to see your faces again! Stay well, and hope to see more of you this summer.

Regards,

Julie Marto

508-359-8176
508-333-8176 (cell)

P.S. College student come home with a slow laptop? Drop it off with me for a tune-up and clean-up.
Google Photos
I have always been a big fan of Google Photos - it provides an automated, organized, and fully searchable cloud storage photo backup option that is easy to use. Until June 1st, it was also totally free, if you allowed them to compress your photos into something they called "high quality", rather than original quality.
However, free unlimited photo storage is not cheap to provide, even for a huge company like Google, and Google has changed their policies regarding photo storage. Every free Google account includes a total of 15GB of storage, used for email and files in Google Drive. Photos uploaded in "high quality" didn't count towards that 15GB of storage prior to June 1st, 2021. Now they will.

So, what does this mean, and what should you do about it?

Fortunately, pictures you uploaded prior to June 1st will not count against your free storage quota, so any high quality photos you already have in Google Photos are there for free for the duration. That will not be the case for future uploads.

Google has rebranded its services under the name "Google One", and the first thing you should do is visit the Google One main page and check what is going on under "storage". That will tell you how much of your 15GB storage quota you are already using, and what is actually taking up the space. Then you can visit this page to get a personalized estimate of when you will run out of free storage. You may find that you have many years before it becomes an issue, or you might find that your Gmail and Google drive files are filling up your storage quota, and cleaning them out can buy you some time. If you are close to your storage quota and you want to continue using Google Photos, it might just make sense to purchase 100GB of storage for $19.99/year.

My recommendation would be to continue using Google Photos for as long as you can for free, and then decide if you want to pay for more storage, or find another option for long term photo backup. If you are currently paying for an Microsoft 365 subscription (see my next article), that includes 1TB of OneDrive storage, which might be a good alternative. Some other alternative cloud photo storage options are iCloud for Apple users, DropBox, Amazon Photos, and Flickr. If you just want to remove all your photos from Google Photos and keep them locally, you can download them individually, as albums, or as an entire compressed library using Google Takeout.

Personally, I like the way Google Photos works, and will continue to use it, even if I have to pay for more storage. It is automated, I can search my photos easily, and my pictures remain in Google Photos even if they are deleted from my device, which is not the case with other cloud based sync options like iCloud. If you are unsure or what to do, or if you need help with any of this, feel free to give me a call!
How to Share Your Office Subscription
Many people don't realize that Microsoft Office is not a part of Windows 10, but needs to be bought and paid for separately. Microsoft sells Office in two distinctly different ways - as a one time purchase, or as a subscription product. There are different versions of each, but most people either buy the one time Microsoft Home and Student ($149 for Word, Excel and PowerPoint), or subscribe to Microsoft 365 Personal or Family ($69 or $99/year for the full Office suite including Outlook and all other applications).
About a year ago, Microsoft renamed their subscription product from Office 365 to Microsoft 365, and added some very nice new features. Microsoft would prefer you to subscribe to Office, so they have put in place some incentives to make subscribing attractive. By far, the biggest perk is the way Microsoft 365 Family can be shared.

Every Microsoft 365 Family subscription can be shared between up to 6 family members, and each family member can install the full Office suite of software on up to 5 systems. Additionally, each family member gets 1TB of OneDrive storage, premium Outlook.com email with 50GB of storage, 60 minutes of Skype calling credit, and access to Microsoft technical support.

Apart from Microsoft Office software, the biggest perk here is the 1TB of OneDrive storage per user. If you share your Office account with the maximum 6 users, you will be paying $99/year for 6TB of cloud storage - that is a VERY good deal. Aside from simply using the OneDrive space to sync files across devices, Windows 10 users can set up OneDrive to automatically back up their systems, eliminating the need for an additional backup system. There is even built-in ransomware protection and document versioning.

So, how do you share your Microsoft 365 Family subscription? Each person you share the subscription with will need a Microsoft account. To share the subscription, the main subscriber needs to sign in to their own Microsoft account, and click on "account settings". In the main account page, click on "Manage Microsoft 365 Family Services and Subscriptions". From that page, click on "sharing" and then click on "start sharing". You will be given the option to invite a family member, either via email or via link. I generally use the email invitation. Your family member will get an email inviting them to the subscription. When they click accept, they will be asked to either sign in to their Microsoft account, or create a new account if they don't have one. If they need to create a new account, they can use their existing email address, or create a new Outlook.com address. Once they are signed into a Microsoft account, they can download and install Office, set up OneDrive, and access any other features they wish to use.

A shared Microsoft 365 Family subscription can actually be a great value - I have been using one for many years. If you need any help setting any of this up, be sure to give me a call.
Facebook Roundup
Every month I post several articles of interest on my Facebook page. For those of you who don't follow me on Facebook, here are some of the stories I've featured in the past this few months.

Supply chain shortages are affecting Apple's bottom line. It's not just Apple, however - expect the chip shortage to affect every aspect of tech purchasing for a while. Don't forget, I can help you choose the best system from those currently in stock, or keep your older tech going until the supply chain normalizes.
If you get a text about suspicious activity on your account, don't click on the link. Scammers are taking advantage of the fact that banks and other financial institutions communicate via text. Always call the number on the back of your card, or go directly to the bank's website on your browser.

Know someone who is just starting their college search? Share this simple tip to help give them agency and control over the process.

For you AOL and Yahoo email users, this doesn't seem good to me. It might just be time to move on - expect a full article about this in the future.

And finally, don't fall for this "Unsubscribe" scam - it will only lead to more spam in your inbox!