What you need to know
- Amazon Drive is scheduled to close on December 31, 2023.
- Amazon Photos should automatically save photos and videos from your 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 notified users via an email this week that it will shut down its Drive cloud storage service in 2023.
The alert notifies Amazon Drive users to close the service next year. Amazon Drive is a cloud storage service where users can backup their files, similar to Google Drive. The service is offered across the web, Android, and iOS, with users given 5GB of free space to upload files.
Amazon explains that the company wants to “focus our efforts more on storing photos and videos with Amazon Photos.”
The company has created a FAQ page about neglecting amazon drive (Opens in a new tab) Where users can get a better understanding of what is happening. On that page, Amazon says it will remove the Drive cloud app from its Android and iOS app stores on December 31, 2023. However, about a full year ago (January 31, 2023), Amazon will no longer allow you to upload files to Amazon Drive.
The company says, “As an Amazon customer, your Amazon Drive photos and videos are automatically saved to Amazon Photos.” Users will also have until the official Amazon Drive closing date (December 31, 2023) to download or view any remaining files. The FAQ page also provides step-by-step instructions for getting your items from Amazon Drive and how to cancel your subscription to the service. The help page also says, “If you’re 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, closing it down means there’s one less option out there. Still, users have plenty of time to get ready before they are no longer able to access the files on the service.