Google One Launches for Everyone in the US

Earlier in the year, Google introduced a new service called Google One. The company’s subscription service gives users increased storage, as well as a number of other benefits across all its other services. The service has been available in preview before, but it’s now available to everyone in the United States.

With Google One, users can purchase (cheaper) storage for their Google Account. You can get 100GB of storage for $1.99 a month, 200GB for $2.99 a month, or 2TB for $9.99 a month. The $2.99 plan is new, but the $9.99 plan has been upgraded to offer 2TB storage instead of 1TB, just like Dropbox. The service also lets you share the benefits included as part of your subscription with others in your family — this means you can add up to 5 family members to your account, and let them use your storage as well as other benefits.

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Talking about the other benefits of Google One, there isn’t a lot at this moment. Google will provide One members with 24/7 access to experts which is essentially a premium customer service option. The company is going to provide other benefits across its service, too — for example, users are getting free credits on the Google Play store, as well as deals for hotels found in Google Search. Going forward, the company hopes to provide users with benefits for Google Store and Google Express.

Google One seems like a really good deal for users who live in the Google ecosystem. If you use Gmail, store your photos on Google Photos, use Google Drive for cloud storage, or have an Android phone, this is definitely something you should get right away. If you are interested, you can get it here.

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Conversation 6 comments

  • Daekar

    15 August, 2018 - 2:07 pm

    <p>Wait, you say that right now it's basically a storage plan with some special customer service (which you hope never to use) tacked on, and other possible benefits in the future. How can you then possibly claim that it's "something you should get right away?"</p><p><br></p><p>If you use Gmail, why should you get this if you don't already buy storage from Google?</p><p>If you use Google Photos, why should you get this if you don't care about storing photos above the 16MP threshold (that is, almost everybody because there are very few muggles that even know the difference…)</p><p>If you use Google Drive for storage and don't need more space, this isn't a no brainer.</p><p>If you use Google Drive for storage and you already pay for more space… this is sort of a moot point, isn't it?</p><p>If you have an Android phone, why is this relevant in any way if you don't have the need for storage already?</p><p><br></p><p>Seriously, we appreciate the summary of the plan benefits, slim as they are at the moment, but that last bit is the kind of empty nonsense I expect to see at Engadget or one of the other digital rags that pass for tech sites now.</p>

    • slartybartmark

      15 August, 2018 - 2:21 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#301978">In reply to Daekar:</a></em></blockquote><p>To answer your question/concern about Drive if you already pay for storage, here's what it says on the Google One site:</p><p><span style="color: rgb(95, 99, 104);">If you have a paid Drive storage plan, you’ll be automatically upgraded to Google One over the coming months.</span></p><p><br></p><p>The rest (photo storage, Gmail, Android backups, etc.) I would assume will be stored here as well when they transition your account. </p><p><br></p><p>The article does seem a bit premature because the phone app and the site both still say "Coming Soon" and trying to enter the url: one.google.com redirects to one.google.com/getupdates which is what it has done for a while now. </p><p><br></p><p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;">Although if their track record is any indication, they will implement One now and keep Drive around. Then in a few months they will say that One is for </span><span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102); background-color: transparent;">“great product for users with specific workflows,” </span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;">and they will update Drive with a special new interface – say nothing further about it and the two will co-exist confusingly a'la Gmail/Inbox. HA!</span></p><p><br></p><p><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;">UPDATE: I got an email from Google telling me I was ready to upgrade, but the link still points to the 'coming soon' page. Looks like this is a work in progress today.</em></p>

    • Saxwulf

      Premium Member
      15 August, 2018 - 6:52 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#301978">In reply to Daekar:</a></em></blockquote><p>Tut Tut. You're not suggesting that this site has developed a Google bias, are you?</p>

  • Tony Barrett

    16 August, 2018 - 6:20 am

    <p>Not surprised it's US only for now – hopefully not too long before it get's to the UK.</p>

  • chadhassler

    Premium Member
    16 August, 2018 - 1:17 pm

    <p>The backup and sync engine for Windows is…hot garbage. I tested this 2 months ago – moving my main cloud storage system to google instead of OneDrive. Let me tell you, the sync client is the worst piece of syncing software I've ever seen.</p><p><br></p><p>Want to move a large set of files from one folder to another? Want to do that from Google's web interface? Be prepared for the sync engine to DELETE the content from the original folder and RE-DOWNLOAD it to the new folder. I should mention that I could probably manually recreate the files themselves and save them to the new location faster than that sync engine can pull em down. It's a disgrace and is not worth anyone's money. </p><p><br></p><p>Google photos is fine on it's own at the 16MP level – It's basically a spare set for me. The original HD versions are synced to iCloud Photo Library and OneDrive. </p>

  • wright_is

    Premium Member
    17 August, 2018 - 2:56 am

    <p>I don't really use any Google Drive space with my Android, cloud backup of configuration only, images etc. are stored on OneDrive… Gmail is only used to register on spammy sites, so even as an Android user, it is definitely not a no brainer.</p>

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