The Amazon Drive cloud storage platform will shut down on December 31st. Going forward, any items saved to your Amazon Drive may only be accessed through Amazon Photos.

Files that are currently saved to Amazon Drive will not be deleted. Amazon did not clarify this point when it initially announced the Drive shutdown in July 2022. That said, you can no longer upload content to Amazon Drive, and the Amazon Photos platform only accepts photo or video uploads.

If you need to download files from Amazon Drive, visit the Amazon Photos website and navigate to the “Folders” tab. Select the folders or files that you want to save and press the “Download” button that appears at the top of your screen.

You can also download Drive contents from the Amazon Drive website, though this option will disappear on December 31st. Users who have an unreliable or slow internet connection should use the Amazon Photos desktop app, as its download process can be interrupted without any consequence.

Amazon Drive came with 5GB of free storage when it launched in 2011. And, at one point, Amazon was naive enough to offer an unlimited cloud storage plan. Even if you don’t remember using Amazon Drive, there’s a decent chance that you took advantage of these promotions. You should log into Amazon Photos to see what’s there.

Also, Amazon keeps “Send to Kindle” files and various digital purchases in Drive. You may find some stray ebooks and MP3s in the “Folders” section of Amazon Photos.

Former Amazon Prime customers may also encounter a “your storage is over quota” warning when logging into Amazon Photos. This is due to Prime’s unlimited photo storage benefit—when you cancel Prime, all of those photos suddenly contribute to your cloud storage capacity. Amazon won’t delete any files after you exceed your storage capacity, though it will prevent you from uploading new images or videos.

The Amazon Drive platform officially retires on December 31st, 2023. It’s an odd thing to see. Amazon is a leader in cloud computing, and Drive is the kind of product that could lock customers into Prime memberships.

Source: Amazon