Millions of BT customers must check their accounts NOW or risk losing precious photos ahead of service closure
BT Broadband customers have just days to check their accounts for precious memories stored on a forgotten web service before it’s too late.
The telecoms giant is shutting down its BT Cloud offering, which allows users to back-up their photos and videos at no extra cost.
While most people may now use iCloud or Google Drive, it might be worth checking there aren’t any old photos or videos stored on the platform.
As from October 31, they will be deleted.
BT says the shake-up has come about because demand has “dropped significantly”.
The firm warned customers about the move in July.
And at the time some did not take the announcement well.
“My contract ends in October, so time to move to another ISP,” one affected customer wrote online in July.
New uploads were disabled on September 9, giving people a bit more time to access existing files only.
“Please make sure that you have moved any files that you want to keep to an alternative provider before BT Cloud closes,” BT’s website reads.
“You may see error messages when you try to access your files.
“This is because we’ve moved to read-only.”
Free cloud storage alternatives
While you won’t get as much storage as BT Cloud offered, there are plenty of free alternatives around to consider.
- Google Drive – 15GB
- Microsoft OneDrive – 5GB
- Apple iCloud – 5GB
- Amazon – 5GB
If you subscribe to Amazon Prime, you get free unlimited photo storage as part of your account, so this could be worth considering.
SAVE ON SUBSCRIPTIONS!
Here’s what The Sun’s tech expert Sean Keach says…
Subscriptions seem impossible to escape these days.
You’ll probably got half a dozen or even more – and it can be hard to give them up.
So bundling subscriptions is a very easy way to cut down on some costs.
Apple One is a great option if you’re already subscribing to Apple services.
And if you’re using Spotify, maybe switching to Apple Music via Apple One is a decent way to save some money.
More important is not overlooking the family sharing aspect of these subscriptions.
You can share services like Apple Music and Apple TV+ with up to five other people in your household.
That’s a potentially enormous saving that you definitely don’t want to miss out on.
If you’ve got multiple people in the house paying for the same Apple subscriptions, you’re literally throwing away money.
Grab an Apple One family plan and cut those bills right down.
And if you decide that you don’t like it, you can cancel at any time and go back to the old way.
So it’s worth trying, if only to see if you do end up saving any money.