- Monday, August 24, 2020
If you're looking for free cloud storage offering the most space for your photos, videos or any other type of data I got you covered. I'll tell you the 10 best free cloud storage services in order beginning with those offering the least free storage and any of those offering the most going over the pros and cons of each if used in combination you just might find yourself with more than enough free storage to meet all your needs. The first of three services offering five gigabytes in their basic free plan.
Next is from Microsoft is OneDrive. Not only is it available for windows it's also available for Mac OS, Android and IOS. Folders backed up from your PC are available online to view or edit without the need to download them first files and folders can also be shared with individuals that don't have OneDrive to view or edit. The OneDrive basic plan will give you five gigabytes of storage for free, but if you subscribe to office 365 which recently changed its name to Microsoft 365 for some strange reason, you get one terabyte storage with Microsoft 365 personal and one terabyte per person up to six with Microsoft 365 family.
If you're an Amazon Prime member you get unlimited photo storage in full resolution plus five gigabytes of video storage for free with Amazon Drive. If you're not a member of Prime you can still get up to five gigabytes of photo and video storage for free. If you need more storage than the five gigabytes offered, they do have additional plans starting at around $20/- per year.
First of which is IDrive, it supports an unlimited number of devices and is feature packed it lets you back up multiple devices with just one account and includes continuous file syncing while it does support end-to-end encryption one downside is that two-factor authentication is not supported at this time. The IDrive free basic plan with five gigabytes of online storage will not expire, it's yours to use forever. If you need more space, they have personal and business plans starting at around $52/- per year.
Box is another popular service that's been around for more than a decade with 10 gigabytes of free online storage. They're known for having great security with the ability to access just about any file type anywhere on just about any device, with their free individual plan Box limits you to a poultry 250 megabyte file upload limit, while they have $10/- per month pro plan does increase the upload limit to 5 gigabytes with up to 100 gigabytes of storage.
Mediafire doubles the amount of free storage to 10 gigabytes, this can be increased up to 50 gigabytes with bonuses for referring friends and downloading apps. While they do make it easy to share your files with no limits on downloads there is an upload limit of 4 gigabytes per file, which might be an issue for those of you with large video files. With the free basic plan Mediafire is Ad supported for additional features and to get rid of the Ads they have plans starting at $7.50/- per month.
The lesser-known pCloud based in Switzerland has been gaining in popularity lately their 10 gigabyte free plan has no file size limit or speed limit and includes a ton of useful features. In addition to the standard tools you would find with most storage services. It can also restore previous versions of your files for 15 days on the free plan and premium users get 30 days. With pCloud the typical monthly and annual plans are available, if you need more storage or you can opt for one of their lifetime plans for a one-time fee.
mimedia is another one to consider with 10 gigabytes of free storage, while the file size limit is 5 gigabytes their upload speeds are quite fast. Just like most of the other services mentioned apps are available for the most popular devices to upload or access your files at any time. For those of you that need more space their upgraded plans start at $7.99/- per month.
Offering 10 gigabytes of free storage icedrive is the last of the free services I would recommend, they're based in the UK and have only been around for a couple years. So far the overall user experience has been positive, unfortunately there is a three gigabyte daily bandwidth limit and it does not have two-factor authentication. On the positive side in addition to their desktop and mobile apps portable apps are also available for Windows Mac OS and Linux. icedrive offers monthly yearly and lifetime packages for those people needing more space.
Offering the second most free storage of those I recommend is Google Drive the total storage is 15 gigabytes which is shared between Gmail, Google Photos and Google Drive. It's great for file sharing and collaboration allowing files to be accessed by multiple people at the same time and can be used on all the major platforms. In a weird move if you stick with the free plan the name of the service is called Google Drive but if you upgrade to one of their paid plans the name of the service changes to Google One, it's essentially the same service with more features those plans start at $1.99/- per month.
The service in this list offering the largest amount of free cloud storage is degoo based in Sweden they offer a massive 100 gigabytes blowing away the others mentioned, there are limitations including a 512 megabyte upload file size limit and files can only be uploaded from up to three devices. On the flip side there is no limit for downloading or viewing of any files and offers end-to-end encryption. With their free plan degoo is Ad supported and you do have to log in once every 90 days to keep your free account active. If you opt for one of their paid plans starting at $2.99/- per month for 500 gigabytes there are no Ads and you get additional features.
The two notable mentions you might have expected to see in this blog and i'll tell you why they're not included as one of the top 10 I recommend.
While Dropbox is one of the most well-known services the free storage offered is only a measly two gigabytes and limits the bandwidth on shared folders.
Apple iCloud is geared only towards those that own apple devices, if you have an apple id you get five gigabytes free otherwise you get one gigabyte of free storage.
If this blog is useful for you share it with your friends and family. What is your favorite service offering free cloud storage let me know about it in the comments.
Joydeep Deb is a Senior Digital Marketer and Project Manager with strong experience in Digital Marketing, Lead Generation, Online Brand Management, Marketing Campaigns, Project Management, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), PPC, eMail Marketing, Web Analytics, Web Technologies, Web Design and Development.
With an MBA in Marketing. IIM Calcutta Alumini. Lives in Bangalore, Karnataka - India.