Link rot is one example of how every webpage has a lifecycle that eventually runs out. It's tough to fully blame anyone here: Services need to be paid in order to ensure that they'll have the resources to keep digital history alive. But the dot-com boom of services that offered completely free uploading and hosting to all has come to an end. To many, the internet appears to be an immutable force for preservation and documentation of everything. But the truth is that tens of billions of photos have been uploaded to mostly free accounts on the service over the past 18 years of its existence, and this change will undoubtedly result in the loss of many images that no longer exist in any other form. This applies to a variety of different Flickr photo categories - private, friends, family, or friends and family.įree account holders can download all their photos (here's an explainer on how to do it from Flickr).

Then, on May 17th, Flickr will further delete images from Free accounts, deleting any non-public photos past the first 50. Everyone else will simply see these photos disappear, along with the metadata and comments that go with them.

There's only one solution to keeping your photos if this applies to you: Buy a Pro account plan, which costs $8.25 per month, plus tax, though this can be reduced if billed annually or biannually. Flickr's Upcoming Photo Deletionsįlickr is issuing two swaths of updates this May.įirst, effective on May 1st, Flickr will change the functionality available from its Free account plan: No “moderate” or “restricted” images will be allowed, and any pre-existing ones will be “subject to removal.” The terms refer to NSFW material, with “moderate” referring to any images featuring partial nudity. It's the latest reminder that not only will nothing on the internet last forever, but a lot of it won't even last much longer than a few decades. The biggest update is that all free Flickr accounts with more than 50 non-public photos will have those non-public photos deleted.

This time next month, it's going to be a lot smaller.įlickr is currently set to start enforcing a few changes to how the service works on May 17,th 2022. Flickr is one of the most long-lived and well-established photo-storing websites, hosting billions of free photos since its creation in 2004.

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