Unlimited Google Photos Is Ending In 2021
Sad news...the unlimited Google Photos storage is ending in 2021. The change is expected to happen by mid-year, possibly by June 2021. If you
take a lot of photos and videos on your phone, you might want to look into an alternative because all of those photos and videos you upload will count against your Google storage.
The good news is that this change will only apply to the photos you upload starting June 1, 2021. All of the photos you upload prior to June 1, 2021, will not be affected. If you decide you want to stay with Google Photos, you will have the option to purchase more space. You would need to purchase one of the Google One plans, which starts at $1.99 per month for 100GB. If
you don’t subscribe, you will have 15GB of free storage that is carried over to all of the Google apps, including your Gmail and Google Drive.
A Cost-Saving Alternative
An alternative to Google Photos that could save you some money and storage space on your Google apps would be to use Amazon Photo Storage. Similar to Google Photos storage, Amazon Photos is an
online photo storage option that allows you to upload and download photos and videos from your cell phone, tablet, and computer.
If you have a free Amazon account, you will get 5GB of photo storage. Amazon Prime subscribers get unlimited photo storage plus 5 GB of video storage included in your membership! There are other cloud storage options out there, but if you are already an Amazon Prime subscriber, this is an alternative that can save you money from purchasing additional storage through Google, so you
might as well take advantage of your membership benefits!
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Meditation and Breathing Apps You Might Love
One of the things I have been focusing on as part of my self-care routine is meditation and breathing exercises to help keep me calm and focused. With so much noise and chaos in the world, we need to shut out the noise in our brain, get quiet, and just breathe.
Calm Yourself!
I use an iPhone app called Calm for guided meditation, nap stories, and sleep stories. There are even bedtime stories for kids! I have never slept better since using this app, and it’s absolutely worth the yearly fee. One of the features that I like the most about Calm is that you can share one account with
up to six family members. My kids have started using the sleep stories and meditations now too!
If you are not into meditation, Calm still has several features that make it one of the most popular apps on the apple store right now. You can listen to music that helps you relax, focus, and sleep. It has nature scenes and sounds that you can play in the background on your phone while working, studying, sleeping, or resting. Calm also features video lessons on mindful movement and gentle
stretching. You can listen to audio programs taught by world-renowned mindfulness experts, too.
Alexa Helps You Meditate!
There is also a similar feature on your Amazon Alexa. Mindful Meditation is a suite of meditation sequences ranging from three minutes to twenty minutes in length. To use this feature, just say “Alexa, open Mindful Meditation”. You can tell Alexa to ask Mindful Meditation to play a five-minute meditation (or whatever length out of the available choices at the moment). If you want a surprise, you can tell Alexa to ask Mindful Meditation to play a random meditation.
If you want to use the same meditation every day, you can tell Alexa to ask Mindful Meditation to set the default meditation to three, for example, to set the default to the three-minute meditation.
There are many meditation apps in your phone’s store or for your PC. You can even find several Google Chrome Extensions that provide scenic wallpaper or backgrounds, nature sounds, and music to help you focus and stay productive while working. In fact, the Calm app is a Chrome Extension, too!
I hope you will find a meditation app that helps you stay calm in the chaos, focused, and productive in 2021!
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