Amazon Drive

Amazon Drive, formerly known as Amazon Cloud Drive, is a cloud storage application managed by Amazon.[1] The service offers secure cloud storage, file backup, file sharing, and Photo printing. Using an Amazon account, the files and folders can be transferred and managed from multiple devices, including web browsers, desktop applications, mobiles, and tablets. Amazon Drive also lets their U.S. users order photo prints and photo books using the Amazon Prints service.[2]

Amazon Drive
Type of businessDivision
Type of site
DissolvedDecember 31, 2023 (2023-12-31)
Headquarters
United States
Area servedUnited States, United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Australia, Canada, Brazil, China
IndustryInternet
ParentAmazon.com
URLwww.amazon.com/clouddrive
RegistrationRequired
LaunchedMarch 29, 2011 (2011-03-29)
Current statusActive

Today, Amazon Drive offers free unlimited photo storage with an Amazon Prime subscription or a Fire Tablet device, and a paid limited storage service.[3][4] Launched in major countries including the U.S., Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the U.K., Japan, and Australia,[5] it also functions in Brazil and China as a free limited 5GB storage service.

On July 29, 2022, Amazon announced that the service would be discontinued on December 31, 2023, whereas Amazon Photos is continued.

History

Amazon first announced the storage service on March 29, 2011, initially offering pay-as-you-need tiered storage plans for the users. Users paid only for the storage tier they utilized expandable up to a maximum of 1 terabyte plan.[6]

In March 2015, Unlimited Storage plans intended for non-business customer sections were introduced.[7] The plan offered a free 3-month free trial for the customers who wish to try the service before entering an annual subscription. During 2015 Black Friday, the plan became popular when Amazon offered 92% discounted Unlimited Storage plan for $5, down from $60, for a year from purchase.[8] The fine print stated that Unlimited Storage was "only for private use", was restricted by file type, and must not "substantially exceed or differ from normal use by other users". Amazon anytime "may impose other restrictions on use of the Service".[9]

In June 2017, Amazon reverted the unlimited storage plans in the US.[10]

On 15 November 2017, Amazon removed the unlimited storage plans for customers in Canada as well.

Storage Plans

As of July 2019, Amazon offers two plans in their marketplaces: Prime Photos (since November 2014)[11] and free limited file storage in Brazil and China only.

Prime Photos

The Prime Photos plan offers unlimited storage for photos and RAW files, and a 5 gigabytes of storage for videos and other files.[12] Photos can be uploaded to Amazon Drive with iOS or Android apps, Kindle device, or the Cloud Drive website. Additionally, users of Kindle Fire tablets also get the plan's benefits along with the purchase of device. Their photos and videos will automatically backup from device to the Amazon Drive's cloud storage.[13] According to Amazon, Prime Photos is only available for personal, non-commercial use and can't be used in conjunction with a photography business. Full resolution photo formats and RAW files can be uploaded, but most Raw formats won't be viewable within the service's web interface or apps.[11][14]

Free 5GB

Brazil and China have Amazon Drive service but is limited to 5GB storage only.[15][16][17] This storage counts the space taken by photos, videos, and files of other types. For customers in these countries, Amazon Drive doesn't offer an expansion plan, neither tier-based nor unlimited, to store media files exceeding the limited 5GB.

Country support
Country Prime Photos Unlimited Storage Free 5GB Amazon Prints
U.S.[18] Yes Until June 2017 Since June 2017 Yes
Canada[19] Yes Until November 15, 2017 Since November 15, 2017 Yes
U.K.,[20] Germany,[21] France,[22] Italy,[23] Spain[24] Yes Yes No No
Japan[25] Yes Yes No No
Australia[26] No Yes No No
Brazil[17] No No Yes No
China[16] No No Yes No
India Yes No Yes No

Supported devices

Web

The service is supported on almost all types of devices ranging from PCs to mobiles. The web application is supported in common web browsers including Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and Google Chrome. One can create folders to organize files, rename files, move them around, and so forth. The application handle photos better than files. From the Web app, photos and videos can be viewed and played, whereas files are not viewable. By default, the images are sorted by the date they were taken. The photos include basic metadata such as filename, capture date, added date, filesize, and pixel dimension.

Desktop

Amazon Drive has released a desktop application supported for both Mac and Windows designed as a drop panel allowing users to drag and drop their files to initiate uploading. Users will have to install the application on their PC or Mac to use the application. It supports a one-touch button for downloading all the files from cloud should they be restored. Notably, files above 2GB can only be uploaded to Amazon Drive by the desktop clients. During bulk upload, files and folders can be paused or cancelled while in progress.

Mobile

Amazon Drive offers free smartphone application for iOS and Android mobile devices. The mobile application does everything on the Web and in addition automatically backs up and upload all the media files in the mobile device to the cloud. Amazon's proprietary devices, Kindle Fire and Fire Phone, ship with free unlimited photo storage which similarly backs up the photos files in the tablet to Amazon Drive.[27]

Features

Amazon Prints

In September 2016, Amazon Drive has launched Amazon Prints in U.S. through which users can edit their photos to order prints and photo books from the application. Once ordered, Amazon will ship the print orders to the customer's address similar to other retail orders.[2]

Multilingual support

As the service is available in major Amazon Marketplaces, the applications are supported in multiple languages for usage in different countries. Popular languages that are supported are regional variations of English, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, and Japanese.

Digital media players

Amazon Drive is also built into Amazon Fire TV and Amazon Video application in other media players and Smart TVs. Having these devices, users can browse their personal photos and videos on large TV screens or view them as a slideshow.[28]

Limitations

Prime Photo users can upload an unlimited number of picture file formats only, and rest of the formats including video formats will be counted in the additional 5GB storage in the plan. If additional files exceeding 5GB need to be stored, one can opt for one of the paid plans depending on the country. In the unlimited plans, files above 2GB are restricted from uploading to the application. The desktop application however, is exempted from uploading files greater than 2GB in size.[29] Amazon Drive streaming is not available for videos longer than 20 minutes or larger than 2 GB, but these can be stored in Amazon Drive to download and watch offline.[14] Unlike other popular file hosting services, Amazon Drive does not offer file-syncing or automatic backup in Web, so users cannot have the latest desktop version of all their documents and images. Also, shared documents cannot be collaborated with others, but can only be downloaded for editing. However, mobile applications support automatic backup capabilities.[28]

The service limits the usage for personal and non-commercial use. One may not use it to store, transfer or distribute the content of or on behalf of third parties, to operate own file storage application or service, to operate a photography business or other commercial service.[30]

See also

References
  1. Couts, Andrew (March 29, 2011). "Amazon launches Cloud Drive 'digital locker,' Cloud Player". Digital Trends.
  2. "Order Prints from Amazon Drive accounts". Amazon.
  3. "Unlimited Photos storage with Prime membership". Amazon.
  4. "Take Photos on Kindle Fire HD tablet". Amazon.
  5. Comparison of file hosting services
  6. What Is Amazon Cloud Drive?
  7. "Amazon Goes After Dropbox, Google, Microsoft With Unlimited Cloud Drive Storage". 26 March 2015.
  8. Amazon's best Black Friday deal might be a $5 subscription for unlimited cloud storage
  9. Bott, Ed. "Is Amazon's online storage really 'unlimited'? Read the fine print | ZDNet". ZDNet. Retrieved 2016-12-13.
  10. Amazon has killed off its unlimited data storage deal - The Verge
  11. "Amazon launches Prime Photos with unlimited storage for Prime members".
  12. About RAW Photo Files
  13. "Unlimited Cloud Storage for Photos on Kindle Fire Tablets". Amazon.
  14. "Amazon Drive: Photo, Video, and File Requirements". Amazon.
  15. "Amazon Rolls Out 'Cloud Drive' in China Ahead of Possible Kindle Launch".
  16. "Amazon Drive China official page".
  17. "Amazon Drive Brazil official page".
  18. "Amazon Drive US official page". Amazon.
  19. "Amazon Drive CA official page".
  20. "Amazon Drive UK official page". Amazon UK.
  21. "Amazon Drive DE official page". Amazon Germany.
  22. "Amazon Drive FR official page".
  23. "Amazon Drive IT official page".
  24. "Amazon Drive ES official page".
  25. "Amazon Drive Japan official page".
  26. "Amazon Drive Australia official page".
  27. "Using Amazon Cloud Drive for Backing Up Photos".
  28. "Amazon Cloud Drive review".
  29. "Amazon Drive Files File Requirements". Amazon.
  30. "Amazon Cloud Drive Terms of Use". Amazon.
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