Amazon Drive, formerly known as Amazon Cloud Drive, was a

cloud storage Cloud storage is a model of computer data storage in which the digital data is stored in logical pools, said to be on "the cloud". The physical storage spans multiple servers (sometimes in multiple locations), and the physical environment is ty ...

application managed by

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technolog ...

. The service offers secure cloud storage, file backup, file sharing, and Photo printing. Using an Amazon account, the files and folders can be transferred and managed from multiple devices, including web browsers, desktop applications, mobiles, and tablets. Amazon Drive also lets their U.S. users order photo prints and photo books using the Amazon Prints service. Today, Amazon Drive offers free unlimited photo storage with an

Amazon Prime Amazon Prime is a paid subscription service from Amazon which is available in various countries and gives users access to additional services otherwise unavailable or available at a premium to other Amazon customers. Services include same, one- ...

subscription or a

Fire Tablet The Amazon Fire, formerly called the Kindle Fire, is a line of tablet computers developed by Amazon. Built with Quanta Computer, the Kindle Fire was first released in November 2011, featuring a color 7-inch multi-touch display with IPS tech ...

device, and a paid limited storage service. Launched in major countries including the U.S.,

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = '' Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , ...

, the U.K.,

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

, and

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

Comparison of file hosting services This is a comparison of file hosting services which are currently active. File hosting services are a particular kind of online file storage; however, various products that are designed for online file storage may not have features or characteri ...

it also functions in

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

and

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

as a free limited 5GB storage service. On July 29, 2022, Amazon announced that the service would be discontinued on December 31, 2023, whereas Amazon Photos is continued.

History

Amazon first announced the storage service on March 29, 2011, initially offering pay-as-you-need tiered storage plans for the users. Users paid only for the storage tier they utilized expandable up to a maximum of 1

terabyte The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable uni ...

plan. In March 2015, Unlimited Storage plans intended for non-business customer sections were introduced. The plan offered a free 3-month free trial for the customers who wish to try the service before entering an annual subscription. During 2015 Black Friday, the plan became popular when Amazon offered 92% discounted Unlimited Storage plan for $5, down from $60, for a year from purchase. The fine print stated that ''Unlimited Storage'' was "only for private use", was restricted by file type, and must not "substantially exceed or differ from normal use by other users". Amazon anytime "may impose other restrictions on use of the Service". In June 2017, Amazon reverted the unlimited storage plans in the US. On 15 November 2017, Amazon removed the unlimited storage plans for customers in Canada as well.

Storage Plans

As of July 2019, Amazon offers two plans in their marketplaces: Prime Photos (since November 2014) and free limited file storage in Brazil and China only.

Prime Photos

The ''Prime Photos'' plan offers unlimited storage for photos and RAW files, and a 5 gigabytes of storage for videos and other files. Photos can be uploaded to Amazon Drive with iOS or Android apps, Kindle device, or the Cloud Drive website. Additionally, users of

Kindle Fire The Amazon Fire, formerly called the Kindle Fire, is a line of tablet computers developed by Amazon. Built with Quanta Computer, the Kindle Fire was first released in November 2011, featuring a color 7-inch multi-touch display with IPS tech ...

tablets also get the plan's benefits along with the purchase of device. Their photos and videos will automatically backup from device to the Amazon Drive's cloud storage. According to Amazon, Prime Photos is only available for personal, non-commercial use and can't be used in conjunction with a photography business. Full resolution photo formats and RAW files can be uploaded, but most Raw formats won't be viewable within the service's web interface or apps.

Free 5GB

Brazil and China have Amazon Drive service but is limited to 5GB storage only. This storage counts the space taken by photos, videos, and files of other types. For customers in these countries, Amazon Drive doesn't offer an expansion plan, neither tier-based nor unlimited, to store media files exceeding the limited 5GB.

Country support

Supported devices

Web

The service is supported on almost all types of devices ranging from PCs to mobiles. The web application is supported in common web browsers including

Internet Explorer Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated IE or MSIE) is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft which was used in the Windows line of operating systems (in ...

Firefox Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements current ...

Safari A safari (; ) is an overland journey to observe wild animals, especially in eastern or southern Africa. The so-called "Big Five" game animals of Africa – lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant, and Cape buffalo – particularly form an impor ...

and

Google Chrome Google Chrome is a cross-platform web browser developed by Google. It was first released in 2008 for Microsoft Windows, built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. Versions were later released for Linux, macOS, ...

. One can create folders to organize files, rename files, move them around, and so forth. The application handle photos better than files. From the Web app, photos and videos can be viewed and played, whereas files are not viewable. By default, the images are sorted by the date they were taken. The photos include basic metadata such as filename, capture date, added date, filesize, and pixel dimension.

Desktop

Amazon Drive has released a desktop application supported for both Mac and Windows designed as a drop panel allowing users to drag and drop their files to initiate uploading. Users will have to install the application on their PC or Mac to use the application. It supports a one-touch button for downloading all the files from cloud should they be restored. Notably, files above 2GB can only be uploaded to Amazon Drive by the desktop clients. During bulk upload, files and folders can be paused or cancelled while in progress.

Mobile

Amazon Drive offers free smartphone application for iOS and Android mobile devices. The mobile application does everything on the Web and in addition automatically backs up and upload all the media files in the mobile device to the cloud. Amazon's proprietary devices,

and

Fire Phone The Fire Phone was a 3D-enabled smartphone developed by Amazon and manufactured by Foxconn. It was announced on June 18, 2014, and marked Amazon's first foray into the smartphone market, following the success of the Kindle Fire. It was available ...

, ship with free unlimited photo storage which similarly backs up the photos files in the tablet to Amazon Drive.

Features

File sharing

Amazon Prints

In September 2016, Amazon Drive has launched Amazon Prints in U.S. through which users can edit their photos to order prints and photo books from the application. Once ordered, Amazon will ship the print orders to the customer's address similar to other retail orders.

Multilingual support

As the service is available in major

Amazon Marketplace Amazon Marketplace is an e-commerce platform owned and operated by Amazon that enables third-party sellers to sell new or used products on a fixed-price online marketplace alongside Amazon's regular offerings. Using Amazon Marketplace, third-party ...

s, the applications are supported in multiple languages for usage in different countries. Popular languages that are supported are regional variations of

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

Simplified Chinese Simplification, Simplify, or Simplified may refer to: Mathematics Simplification is the process of replacing a mathematical expression by an equivalent one, that is simpler (usually shorter), for example * Simplification of algebraic expressions ...

, and

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

Digital media players

Amazon Drive is also built into

Amazon Fire TV Amazon Fire TV (stylized as amazon fireTV) is a line of digital media players and microconsoles developed by Amazon. The devices are small network appliances that deliver digital audio and video content streamed via the Internet to a connected ...

and

Amazon Video Amazon Prime Video, also known simply as Prime Video, is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming and rental service of Amazon offered as a standalone service or as part of Amazon's Prime subscription. The service pr ...

application in other media players and

Smart TV A smart TV, also known as a connected TV (CTV), is a traditional television set with integrated Internet and interactive Web 2.0 features, which allows users to stream music and videos, browse the internet, and view photos. Smart TVs are a techn ...

s. Having these devices, users can browse their personal photos and videos on large TV screens or view them as a slideshow.

Limitations

Prime Photo users can upload an unlimited number of picture file formats only, and rest of the formats including video formats will be counted in the additional 5GB storage in the plan. If additional files exceeding 5GB need to be stored, one can opt for one of the paid plans depending on the country. In the unlimited plans, files above 2GB are restricted from uploading to the application. The desktop application however, is exempted from uploading files greater than 2GB in size. Amazon Drive streaming is not available for videos longer than 20 minutes or larger than 2 GB, but these can be stored in Amazon Drive to download and watch offline. Unlike other popular file hosting services, Amazon Drive does not offer file-syncing or automatic backup in Web, so users cannot have the latest desktop version of all their documents and images. Also, shared documents cannot be collaborated with others, but can only be downloaded for editing. However, mobile applications support automatic backup capabilities. The service limits the usage for personal and non-commercial use. One may not use it to store, transfer or distribute the content of or on behalf of third parties, to operate own file storage application or service, to operate a photography business or other commercial service.

References

External links

* {{File hosting service Amazon (company) Android (operating system) software Cloud applications Cloud computing providers Cloud storage Companies' terms of service File hosting for macOS File hosting for Windows IOS software Online backup services