Unlimited photo/video storage counting against google drive space?

[mtucker]

The summary is my videos were not backing up at 4K when my google drive was showing full (15GB used of 15GB). I deleted some gmail e-mail which counts against the 15GB G-drive limit and now videos backup at 4K. Just a fluke? Will this happen again after I get to 15GB again? Details are below.

About a week before I got the Pixel, I received a notification that my Google storage was almost full (didn't remember the exact wording..... google drive? Google Photos?). No problem as I was getting my Pixel shortly and I would have unlimited picture and video backup from the phone. I got my phone on Thursday the 20th and four days later I got a notification that my google storage was full. I went to Google Photos on a computer web browser and saw all my pictures and videos from the day before were backed up. While in google photos (on the PC), I checked out the resolution of my pictures (click on the little "i" for info button). They were full resolution (4048 × 3036). Then I checked on a video that uploaded. It was only 1080P. I checked the original video on the camera and it was 3840x2160 (4K). I went to the google drive web page and clicked on "upgrage storage" which got me a breakdown of how that 15GB was reached. 10GB for gmail, 5GB for photos, and basically nothing for google drive. Last night after some serious searching on how to bulk delete e-mails from gmail, I knocked gmail down to 5GB which puts me at 10GB used of 15GB for free. I took a video to see what resolution it got backed up as. This morning I see it was stored at full resolution (4K). It makes me wonder if every time my storage gets to 15GB (total between gmail, photos and G-drive) if my videos are going to stop backing up at 4K?

 

[Samzebian]

I assume you didn't take those pictures in the 4 days you have had the phone, which is where you're problem lies. The unlimited backups are only for picture and video content taken from your pixel, not necessarily uploaded from your pixel.

I think the new video uploaded to 4k because you shot it on your pixel, while the other ones were from a previous phone?

 

[mtucker]

I assume you didn't take those pictures in the 4 days you have had the phone, which is where you're problem lies. The unlimited backups are only for picture and video content taken from your pixel, not necessarily uploaded from your pixel. I think the new video uploaded to 4k because you shot it on your pixel, while the other ones were from a previous phone?

Of the 5GB of pictures/videos I have stored on the Google Drive / Photo backup, most of that was already there from previous phones. So lets say I had 4.9GB of previous pictures/videos already on Google drive. It was the pictures and videos that I took on my Pixel that took me over 5GB (which when combined with 10GB from Gmail put me over 15GB). The video that I spoke of that was stored in Google Photos at 1080P was taken by my Pixel and uploaded by my pixel. So the new video was down scaled, but the new pictures off my Pixel were not. Then I cleaned 5GB out of gmail bringing my total storage used down to 10GB and made another video on the Pixel. When I checked that 2nd video, it was on Google drive at full resolution. I might just have to wait until I hit 15GBs again and see if my videos start uploading to Google drive at 1080P again.