SAN FRANCISCO: Tech giant Amazon has announced that its "Drive" cloud storage service is shutting down at the end of 2023. The service was launched in March 2011 as a "secure cloud storage service for Amazon customers to back up their files".
Customers were given 5GB of free storage with apps for Android, iOS, and the web, 9To5Google reported. The retailer is alerting users that have "files stored on Amazon Drive that are not supported by Amazon Photos".
In an email to customers, Amazon clarified that it is not shutting down its Apple or Google Photos competitor, and that this Drive deprecation is meant to "more fully focus our efforts on photos and video storage with Amazon Photos".
Stored pictures and videos should already be available in Amazon Photos, the report said. On January 31, 2023, Amazon Drive will no longer support new uploads. Starting December 31, 2023, users will no longer be able to view or download old content.