AT&T Users Risk Losing Photos Permanently In 2026
Key Takeaways
- AT&T Photo Storage Shuts Down February 1, 2026: Download Your Photos Now to Avoid Permanent Loss.
- Download Your Photos by Requesting an Archive: AT&T Provides ZIP Files (Up to 5GB Each).
- Find a New Backup: Google Photos, iCloud, or USB drives are safer long-term storage solutions.
AT&T is shuttering its AT&T Photo Storage service.
Telecom giant AT&T has issued a warning to all users of its AT&T Photo Storage app. Just four years after launch, the service will soon shut down permanently, forcing thousands of users to store their photos and videos elsewhere before they are permanently deleted.
The service, launched in 2021, offered unlimited photo and video storage to AT&T’s Protect Advantage plan subscribers with the convenience of automatic backup at full quality and no data charges when backing up over AT&T’s network. However, AT&T is now pulling the plug, forcing users to relocate their potentially huge image libraries.
AT&T hasn’t publicly disclosed the reason for the shutdown but as other services (like Google Photos) have shown, “unlimited” storage offers don’t tend to last very long, especially when they become popular.
Here’s what’s happening and when.
Timeline: AT&T Photo Storage Shutdown
October 20, 2025:
- AT&T Photo Storage app users will no longer be able to back up files.
- AT&T Photo Storage will be removed from app stores.
- Users will still be able to access their stored media and download files.
February 1, 2026 – Important Deadline!
- AT&T Photo Storage will shut down entirely.
- All user photos and videos will be deleted from the service
AT&T is telling users to download their photos now to avoid deletion in 2026.
How To Download Your Pictures From AT&T Photo
Thankfully, AT&T has taken steps to make it easy to download your photos and videos before that date. AT&T Photo users can download photos and videos in bulk using the following steps:
- Sign into the AT&T Photos web portal and select “Request your archive.”
- You’ll then need to wait up to 48 hours for a download link to be emailed to you.
- Clicking on the link in the email will take you to a downloads page where your photos and videos will be available in a series of zip archives, each up to 5GB in size.
- You must then download each archive individually to your computer.
- Open the zip archives with any zip app to retrieve individual images and upload them to another storage provider.
What To Do With Your Downloaded AT&T Photos And Videos
If you want to keep your photos and videos safe, you’ll now need to find an alternative place to store them. If you have a relatively small collection, of less than around 10GB, I recommend using Google Photos, which comes with 15GB of free storage per user account. It’s important not to completely fill your Google One account with photos, though, as your storage allocation is shared with other services such as Gmail. If Google Photos isn’t to your liking, there are many alternatives such as Apple’s iCloud, Microsoft OneDrive, pCloud and Dropbox. If you’re an Amazon Prime user, your subscription also includes unlimited photo storage, but remember, your photo storage is tied to your account and will eventually be deleted if you cancel Amazon Prime.
Cloud Storage Is Not Backup
If you have valuable images you want to preserve, now is a great time to back up your downloaded ZIP files to a USB drive or external storage device. You can expect to pay around $100 for a good-quality 1TB example.
As AT&T has just demonstrated, it’s not safe to rely on a cloud provider to look after the only copy of your photo library.
In general, be wary of any service that offers “unlimited” storage of any kind. Google famously discontinued its unlimited Google Photos “high quality” storage perk in 2021.
When that service is gone, so are your memories.
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