iPhone users, Google might owe you some money due to the 'Photos' app bug

If you have recently purchased Google One cloud storage plan on your Apple iPhone or an iPad device, Google might be owing you some money. According to the search giant, a bug in in Google Photos showed inaccurate counting of video and image uploads on the cloud storage quota for iDevice users.

Due to this inaccurate counting, many users may have purchased a bigger Google One storage plan, reports 9to5 Google. Although the company says that this bug has been fixed, it is also offering a refund for those who were credited with using more cloud storage than they actually did and bought a more expensive storage plan. 

According to the firm, this bug affects only a limited number of users.

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The bug does not affect the safety of the content and the uploads done on the cloud. It only relates to the storage quota of the subscriber.

“What happened: Beginning in January 2020, we may have inaccurately counted photo and video uploads towards your storage quota that is shared across Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Photos. These uploads should not have counted against your storage quota. For example, you may have purchased a plan because we mistakenly let you know that you were out of storage space,” said the firm.

And that is why the firm is giving refunds. Google adds that it has requested a refund from the App Store on behalf of customers that were affected by the bug.

On the other hand, Android device users were not affected and have nothing to worry about.

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In the email, Google added that “This will not affect your Google One subscription status. No action is needed, but you can change or cancel your subscription if you no longer need additional storage. You can log into your account to view your adjusted quota usage. The affected photos and video uploads will continue to be stored in the quality they were uploaded, however they will not count toward your storage quota.”

So, in case you are an iPhone or an iPad user who recently purchased an extra Google One storage plan, you are probably eligible for a refund.

 It is worth adding that Google will no longer be giving a free storage to Google Photos users starting June 2021. This means that all the photos and video backups will be counted towards the 15 GB free cloud storage that subscribers received while creating the account.