Trick Allowing iPhone Users Unlimited Google Photos’ Storage Could Disappear Soon; Google Fixing The ‘BUG’

Last week, some iPhone users were surprised to learn that they could save their images on Google Photos at full quality with unlimited storage. The trick is only available to iPhone users and surprisingly not available to users of Google’s flagship phone, Google Pixel 4. But, Android Police reports today that the search engine told them that it is aware of the ‘bug,’ and it is currently fixing it.

Following Google Pixel 4 announcement, many were surprised to learn that it did not offer the free original quality backups on Google Photos like Google Pixel 3. To make the matter worse, a Reddit user shared the following day that users of the latest iPhone series get to save their images at full quality images and can have unlimited storage on Google Photos. iPhone users who save their photos on HEIC/HFIC format can take advantage of this trick.

The Reddit user named stephensawyer explained on his post the reason why iPhone 11 users get to avail of this feature from Google Photos. According to him, iPhone 11 currently saves images in the new and efficient HEIC format. This particular format is far smaller than Google’s compressed JPG file allowing iPhone 11 users to save full quality images and unlimited storage for free.

Google is aware of this and confirmed that the pictures with the HEIC/HFIC format are not compressed and are not charged against Google Photos quota. A Google spokesperson told Android Police that the team is aware of the ‘bug’ and is currently working to fix it. If Google treats it as a bug and would like to fix it, could it mean that this will no longer be available to iPhone 11 users or for photos in HEIC/HFIC format?

Will Google Photos start charging photos on HEIC/HFIC format despite their size? Will it convert the file to JPEG or compress the images further? At this point, we still do not know what Google is planning for this latest iPhone 11 trick. But, it is only reasonable that they should do something about it, considering that Google Pixel 4 users do not get to avail this same ‘luxury.’