As our smartphones get more and more capable of shooting high-quality photos and videos, our storage needs are quickly increasing. Being able to quickly make a 4K video wherever you are is great but it doesn’t amount to much if you’re constantly running out of storage space. Tech giants are aware of this problem and have already started addressing it. Google recently announced that all Google Pixel and Google Pixel XL owners will have unlimited cloud storage for all photos and videos taken with their new flagships and Amazon just introduced an even more versatile feature.
Earlier today, the e-commerce giant unveiled Family Vault, an extension of its existing Prime Photos service available to all Amazon Prime subscribers. Prime Photos users had access to unlimited cloud storage for their multimedia content for a few years now and as of last year, Amazon also allowed them to directly share their photos and videos with other people. Well, that feature just got even better. Like its name suggests, Family Vault now allows you to not only share your multimedia content with family and friends but also gives those people the ability to use your own unlimited cloud storage even if they aren’t paying for an Amazon Prime subscription. Naturally, the service doesn’t extend to everyone as it’s currently limited to five family members and friends, buy hey – it’s free. Well, “free” if you’re already paying for an Unlimited Photos plan, that is.
People in your Family Vault can upload photos to your cloud service from either their browser or their Prime Photos Android app, just like you can. In addition to that, they can upload up to 5 GB of videos and other files to Amazon’s cloud. Of course, all of the uploaded photos can easily be ordered as prints directly from Amazon’s website or Prime Photos Android app. All in all, this isn’t a huge feature but it will certainly make a lot of existing Unlimited Photos subscribers happy and also allow Amazon to reach a larger pool of potential customers without spending a lot of money. Namely, Amazon does all of its hosting in-house so the e-commerce giant probably won’t feel a huge hit from Family Vault.