If you've been saving your favourite Snaps for years, you're about to face a new charge.
Snapchat, the popular messaging and social media service, is putting an end to the unlimited storage that it's offered users for free, since it first launched the Memories feature all the way back in 2016. Parent company Snap Inc. says anyone with more than 5GB of photos and videos saved will need to start paying to keep their digital collection intact.
It's a significant shift for an app where users have collectively stored more than a trillion memories over the past eight years. For those who've kept their saved Snaps under the 5GB threshold, nothing changes.
However, if you're someone who's been preserving thousands of moments on the platform, you'll need to decide whether those memories are worth the new subscription fee.
Snapchat is a social media app that allows users to send photos, videos, and messages that disappear after being viewed
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The basic storage plan gives you 100GB for £18 a year. If you're already a Snapchat+ subscriber paying £4.49 monthly, you'll get 250GB included in your membership, which works out to about £54 annually for those upgrading specifically for the extra space.
There's also a premium option called Snapchat Platinum that comes with a massive 5TB of storage, though the company hasn't confirmed UK pricing for this tier yet.
If you're over the 5GB limit right now, though, Snapchat's giving everyone a full year of temporary storage to figure out their next move. You can upgrade, download your memories to your device, or simply let them go.
You can use Snapchat's ever-changing filters to send photos and videos to friends and family
|SNAPCHAT PRESS OFFICE
Snapchat's recent update has had financial experts sounding the alarm about yet another subscription sneaking onto your monthly bills. According to Updraft, young adults aged 18-24 have already put £1,488 on their credit cards in just the past three months, whilst those aged 25-34 have charged £2,142.
That's considerably more than older generations, who averaged between £1,378 and £1,415 over the same period.
"The new Snapchat storage fee is a great example of the creeping, unexpected costs that can quietly stack up," Aseem Munshi, Founder of Updraft, warns. With nearly half of UK adults already paying for entertainment subscriptions, this latest charge lands at a particularly tough time for young people dealing with rising living costs.
The backlash has been swift, with users taking to social media to voice their frustration. Many are threatening to abandon the app entirely rather than fork out for another subscription.
One user wrote on Reddit, "They think we got money to afford to pay for snap?! Rent and food is our priority."
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"The only reason I used Snapchat is to store photos that I didn't want to have on my phone due to limited storage on Google Photos, and now they're doing this?"
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"We all know what this is and it's greed, every major corp company thats in on streaming, entertainment, or other has done this with literally everything," wrote another Reddit user.
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Another user said, "It’s the principle. All the companies are doing this, it’s greed. It’s not about making the app more efficient, it’s about the revenue in their profits. they made a decent dent off Snap+ subscriptions, and since not everyone wanted to pay for it, they are now forcing it. It’s disgusting, everything is going up! that’s the principle. It didn’t start with snap but they are adding to the issues. So no, no one is overreacting and actually. They aren’t reacting enough."
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Users don't want to pay for the new subscription either. "I just got this too!!! definitely won’t be paying them. Although I only have about 7gb on there saved."
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However, you have options if you want to keep your memories without paying. You can download your Snaps directly to your phone and back them up using free alternatives like Google Photos or iCloud.
To download your Snaps on Google Photos, follow these instructions:
- Open Snapchat on your phone
- Tap your Bitmoji/profile icon in the top-left corner
- Tap the Settings icon in the top-right corner
- Scroll down and select Memories
- Under “Save Destinations,” choose Save Button → set it to Memories & Camera Roll (so all new Snaps save to your phone automatically)
- To download existing Snaps, go to Memories (swipe up on the camera screen)
- Press and hold a Snap or Story
- Tap Export Snap → choose Download or Save to Camera Roll
If you'd rather back up your content on iCloud, follow these steps:
- Install Google Photos from the Play Store or App Store (if you don’t already have it)
- Open Google Photos and sign in with your Google account
- Tap your profile photo → choose Photos settings → Backup
- Turn Backup ON
- Make sure your Camera Roll (where your Snaps are saved) is selected for backup
- Google Photos will automatically upload and sync your Snaps to the cloud
You can also transfer them to a laptop or a USB stick to have them handy on another device.
"A few minutes spent downloading your Snaps could save you just over £30 a year and stop another subscription from slipping unnoticed onto your credit card bill," Mr Munshi suggests. It may be worth considering before you automatically hit that upgrade button.
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