Free Flickr accounts with 1000 or more photos will be locked January 8 - archive your images!

Tomorrow, January 8th, the new free Flickr account limit of 1000 photos goes into effect.  In 2013, Yahoo increased the storage available to free accounts from 200 images to 1 terabyte of storage (or 200,000 5MB photos).  While it brought users, it was to the detriment of the site itself.

"... , the free terabyte largely attracted members who were drawn by the free storage, not by engagement with other lovers of photography. This caused a significant tonal shift in our platform, away from the community interaction and exploration of shared interests that makes Flickr the best shared home for photographers in the world. We know those of you who value a vibrant community didn’t like this shift, and with this change we’re re-committing Flickr to focus on fostering this interaction."

SmugMug is in the process of making changes at Flickr that are meant to increase engagement and more sustainable as a business.

The most significant change is that free accounts will be limited to 1000 photos.

As of tomorrow, January 8th, 2018, all free Flickr accounts with more than 1000 images will be locked, with no new uploads possible unless you upgrade to a Pro account.

There is a 15% discount off Flickr Pro accounts through tomorrow as well. For an annual payment, that comes to about $42.50 for the first year, which would probably be well worth it if you are actively using your account.

On February 8th any items over the 1,000-upload limit may be deleted, starting with the oldest images and videos first. Photos licensed through Creative Commons before November 1, 2018 will not be deleted, even for accounts over the 1,000 limit.

Whether you are leaving Flickr or sticking around, it's worth making a backup archive of your photos.

To create an archive:
1. Sign in to www.flickr.com
2. Click your profile photo at top right
3. Select Settings on the menu (or open www.flickr.com/account )
4. On your Settings page scroll down to the section Your Flickr Data
5. Click the button to request your data

When your archive is ready, you will receive an email from Flickr. It will include one or more files with your account preferences, profile information, contacts, comments, photos and videos.

The downside is that there isn't currently anything you can easily do with that data, other than upload your photos to a different cloud service. If you are interested in uploading to Google Photos or iPhoto, Macworld has a tutorial.

In any case, I think it's worth getting the data. Who knows what you might be able to do in the future?

As one of those users who has only used free Flickr for photo backups over the past 6 years, I've archived mine, and I won't be too sad when my excess images are deleted.