Amazon Photos: What Happens When You Cancel Prime?

If you’re considering canceling your Amazon Prime subscription, you could be concerned about what will happen to all your photos. After all, you’ll no longer have access to unlimited photo storage.

The following sections cover what happens to your photos and the different steps you can take to save them.

What Happens to Your Amazon Photos When You Cancel Amazon Prime?

Amazon Photos gives everyone 5GB of free storage, while Prime subscribers get unlimited photo storage and 5GB of space for videos.

Naturally, when you cancel your Prime subscription, you no longer get unlimited photo storage. This could cause you to hit the storage quota, causing Amazon Photos to stop backing up your pictures. But what about your existing photos? Are they deleted from Amazon Photos? Well, it’s complicated. Here’s what happens when you cancel your Prime subscription:

• You retain 5GB of combined photos and video storage.
• All photos uploaded after the 5GB limit go into an Over Quota status.
• You can download your pictures and videos but can’t upload, sync, or share them.
• After 180 days, Amazon begins deleting the most recently uploaded photos, removing them until you’re under 5GB.
• Amazon will notify you before the company deletes your photos.

Naturally, you can reactivate your Prime subscription or manually delete photos (allowing you to save your favorites) until you’re back under 5GB. However, you can also export them to other photo storage services.

Let’s look at how you can salvage your photos before or after canceling Amazon Prime.

How to Download Amazon Photos to Your Computer

One way to save all your photos from Amazon Photos before canceling Amazon Prime is to save them directly to your computer from a web browser. Here’s how to do this:

1. Go to Amazon Photos on your browser.
2. Choose all your photos by clicking the checkmark icon in the top left corner of the first folder, holding Shift, and selecting the last photo.
   
3. Select Download.
   

Your photos will now download as a zip file on your computer. Double-click it to unzip it.

How to Move Amazon Photos to Google Photos

Should you choose not to reactivate Prime, you’ll need a cloud storage platform to keep all your pictures. Consider transferring them to Google Photos. Google’s cloud backup service is available across all platforms and is a feature-rich alternative to Google Photos. 

Move your Amazon Photos to Google Photos if you have a vast library. Plus, you can transfer them back to Amazon Photos in the future.

To move your photos from Amazon Cloud to Google Photos, download them using the method above, then follow these steps:

1. Log in to Google Photos.
2. Select Upload, and click on Computer in the dropdown menu.
   
3. Choose the Amazon Photos folder you unzipped earlier.
4. Use the command+A or Control+A keyboard shortcut to highlight all your photos. Then, click Open.

If you install the Google Photos and Amazon Drive desktop applications on your computer, transferring the photos between them is easier. Simply copy and paste your pictures into the cloud folder from the Finder or File Explorer.

How to Move Amazon Photos to iCloud on a Mac

You can also download your photos to your Mac and save them to your iCloud. Here are steps on how to do this:

1. Download all your Amazon Photos to your Mac and unzip the file by double-clicking it.
2. Click the Apple icon in the top left corner of your screen.
3. Select System Settings (System Preferences on older versions) and click your name in the menu on the left.
   
4. Click iCloud.
5. Choose Photos from the menu and enable Sync this Mac by clicking the toggle switch.
   

Your downloaded Amazon Photos will be uploaded by iCloud Photos automatically.

How to Download Amazon Photos to Your Android Device

You can use the Amazon Photos app on your Android phone to save all your pictures locally before canceling your Prime subscription. 

1. Download and install the Amazon Photos app from the Play Store.
2. Tap and hold a photo until you see a tick mark. To select more than one, tap on each image or press down on one and slide your finger to choose several photos. To deselect a photo, tap on it again.
   
3. Tap the three-dot icon.
   
4. Choose Download. Note that if you’ve already downloaded a photo to your device, this option won’t show.
   

How to Download Pictures From Amazon Photos to Your iPhone or iPad

Before you cancel your Amazon Prime subscription, Download any excess photos from Amazon Photos to your iPhone or iPad using the Amazon Photos app. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Download and install the Amazon Photos app from the App Store.
2. Press down on the thumbnail or the photo until you see a tick mark. Then, select all the additional images.
3. Tap the three-dot icon at the bottom.
   
4. Choose Download. Note that if you’ve already downloaded a photo to your device, this option won’t show.
   

Unfortunately, with all the above methods, you can’t transfer whole albums or folders; you can only choose multiple photos simultaneously. However, once you’ve downloaded them, you can save them to iCloud by going to your iPhone’s settings and following the same steps as above for Macs.

How to Transfer Amazon Photos to OneDrive

Although OneDrive has the same free storage of 5GB as Amazon Photos, you can split your files between the two if you cancel Amazon Prime or need extra photo storage. You’d need to use a third-party service like CloudHQ to do this. This web service can back up data between different cloud accounts, and it will help transfer some of your Amazon Photos to OneDrive. To do this, follow the steps below:

1. Create a CloudHQ account.
2. Select Sync & Backup at the top.
3. Choose Amazon Drive as the Source Drive.
4. Then click on Add Amazon Cloud Drive.
   
5. Sign into your Amazon account and grant access permissions by selecting Allow.
6. Click on I’d like to sync the entire Amazon Cloud Drive.
7. Select Next.
8. In Destination Drive, choose Microsoft OneDrive.
   
9. Sign in to OneDrive and grant CloudHQ account access permission.
10. Click on Select“
11. Select the location to transfer your Amazon Drive contents or create a new folder.
    
12. Click on Next.
13. If you created a new folder, name it.
14. Then select Create>OK>Start Sync.
    

Save Your Amazon Prime Photos to Other Devices

When you cancel your Amazon Prime account, you won’t have access to Prime Photos features like storing, printing, or sharing your photos for free. You’ll be downgraded to a standard 5GB storage account and have 60 days to decide what to do with your photos above that. Using the described methods, you’ll have plenty of options to keep your pictures safe after your Amazon Prime subscription is over.

Apart from moving pictures, you should consider deleting duplicates from Amazon Photos to get your account storage quota below 5GB before you cancel Prime.

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