If you’ve got some wonderful family memories or your kids’ school pictures in the form of photos stored on Shutterfly, now is the time to review your account. Beginning in September 2022, Shutterfly notified existing customers that inactive accounts would be closed in early 2023. And as of Wednesday, March 29, 2023, Shutterfly will close any inactive accounts and remove any photos stored in those affected accounts.
So how do you know if your account is active? If you made a Shutterfly purchase within the last 18 months, your account — and all of its photos — are safe from being closed. Moving forward, you’ll need to make at least one purchase every 18 months to keep your account in active status and avoid losing all of your photos. Here’s everything we know about the Shutterfly account news and how to save your pics if you’re worried.
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School pictures are not affected by the new inactive account policy.
If your first thought, like ours, was whether or not you’d lose your Lifetouch school photos or JCPenney Portrait Studio photos, you’re safe! According to Shutterfly’s terms and conditions, all purchased photos from Lifetouch and JCPenney Portrait Studio will remain in your Shutterfly account even if no purchases are made in the allotted time frame.
Make a purchase within 18 months to keep your Shutterfly account active (and keep your pics!).
If you’re not ready to consider another photo storage option and want to keep your Shutterfly account active, just make a purchase (no minimum) within 18 months. The no-minimum spend requirement at Shutterfly is the key here. Your account will remain open even if your “purchase” is a free or promotional price item!
If you don’t see a current free Shutterfly promo offer, the most affordable option is to order some prints. They offer 4×6 prints for $0.18 and regularly have deals that drop them as low as $0.09 each.
Note: You could always export your photos to another service, like Google Photos — but they have some policies of their own regarding inactive Google Accounts.
Shop cheap Shutterfly deals or freebies to keep your account active.
With Shutterfly freebies, you still need to pay shipping which is always around $7.99. So even just shopping the freebies and paying the $8 shipping fee will keep your account and your photos safe.
$9.99 6×6 Mini Instant Photo Books and Free Shipping
Want to try making a photo book? Now is your chance. While supplies last, you can get an 6×6 photo book for just $9.99 plus free shipping. This is for a standard 20-page book and doesn’t apply if you add more pages or opt for a different size.
Prefer to transfer your photos somewhere else? You’ve got options.
If you’re not into the idea of making a purchase (or just remembering to make one) every 18 months, there are other storage options for your photos.
Google Photos
Google Photos offers affordable photo storage for photos and videos. It uses AI-powered search and organization tools to automatically sort your photos and make them easily accessible. Additionally, Google Photos allows you to share your photos with others and create collaborative albums.
- 15 GB for free
- 100 GB for $1.99 per month
- 200 GB for $2.99 per month
- 2 TB for $9.99 per month
iCloud Photos
iCloud Photos is Apple’s cloud storage service for photos and videos. It offers seamless integration with Apple devices and allows you to access your photos from anywhere with an internet connection. iCloud Photos also includes advanced organization tools, such as facial recognition and machine learning-based search.
- 5 GB for free
- 50GB: $0.99 per month
- 200GB: $2.99 per month
- 2TB: $9.99 per month
Amazon Photos
Amazon Photos offers free unlimited photo storage for Amazon Prime members, with additional storage available for purchase. It offers automatic organization and categorization of your photos and videos and allows you to easily share your photos with others.
- 5 GB for free
- 100 GB for $1.99 per month
- 1 TB for $6.99 per month
- 2 TB for $11.99 per month
Dropbox
Dropbox is a cloud storage service that also offers photo and video storage. It allows you to access your photos from anywhere with an internet connection and offers advanced collaboration tools for sharing and editing photos with others.
- 2 GB for free
- 2 TB for $9.99 per month
- 2 TB with up to 6 users for $16.99 per month
Microsoft OneDrive
OneDrive is Microsoft’s cloud storage service that includes photo and video storage. It offers seamless integration with Microsoft Office and other Microsoft products and allows you to access your photos from anywhere with an internet connection. OneDrive also includes advanced organization tools and allows you to easily share your photos with others.
- 5 GB for free
- 100 GB for $1.99 per month
- Microsoft Office 365 subscribers get 1 TB of free storage
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