Snapchat say users have saved over a trillion Snaps and Stories in the app – but now, some of them will have to pay to do so.
The change will affect power users who have saved over five gigabytes (5GB) of data, which will now tip them over the limit for the free plan.
If they don’t pay, files which push storage above that amount will be deleted, the most recent first.
Don’t panic though, this won’t happen immediately: after being notified on your device, you will get a year of temporary storage while you work out what to do.
If you have more than that stored but don’t want to pay, you can download all your files to your device and view them there.
How much does it cost to pay for Snapchat Memories?
Snapchat hasn’t released pricing for global markets yet, but told Metro that in the US, the cost will be $1.99 per month for 100GB of storage, 250GB with a Snapchat+ subscription, or 5TB with Snapchat Platinum.
It’s still free if you have less than 5GB, which is still enough to save thousands of snaps.
Why is Snapchat introducing a charge for Memories?
After launching in 2016, the service has so far always been free, but the company said they ‘never expected it to grow to what it has become today’.
Announcing the change, Snapchat said: ‘It’s never easy to transition from receiving a service for free to paying for it, but we hope the value we provide with Memories is worth the cost.
‘Thank you for trusting us with some of your most precious moments. These changes will allow us to continue to invest in making Memories better for our entire community.’
What are Snapchat memories?
It is a feature that lets you save particular snaps so they don’t expire as they would normally.
The company explains it like this: ‘Unlike the camera roll full of duplicates and screenshots, Memories on Snapchat are special because Snapchatters choose to save the moments that really matter.’
You can look back on them, or reshare them, but the archive itself is private.
‘It’s going to hurt’
Snapchat say that the vast majority of users will not be affected, as their saved Memories come to less than 5GB.
But the topic has touched a nerve on Reddit, where some say they have relied on this feature for years.
‘This is a huge L for me,’ one user wrote. ‘Not having a phone with enough storage growing up meant I saved all my memories to my Snapchat memories as a 2nd camera roll.’
As a ‘huge memory hoarder’, they said the change would ‘hurt’ and they’d have to export everything.
Another user saw it as ‘another reminder that unless your data is stored by hardware you own, it’s not really yours. Due to this update millions of people will lose hundreds and thousands of images because they trusted an external party with their data.’
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