In August 2016, Samsung announced a brand new device, the Samsung Galaxy Note 7. With it, as is always the case, came some new software features.
One of the most notable from the time was the new cloud storage service built into the device and which, later, Samsung would expand access to all previous users of its devices who had created Samsung accounts as well as availing it in future devices.
Almost 3 years later, the Galaxy Note 7 belongs to a section of history that Samsung would want us to never remember but Samsung Cloud lives on, showing up under the “Accounts and backup” section of the settings app on Samsung devices to sync content to the cloud.
Samsung cloud backs up photos and videos one takes on their Samsung device, the keyboard’s predictive text data, browser data from Samsung’s own browser app, notes one makes on the Samsung Notes app, contacts (saved locally on the device or on a SIM), call logs, the calendar, Bixby Home settings and pinned cards, messages, apps (installation files) and app settings, the alarm clock, device settings (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth etc), reminders, home screen layouts and wallpapers as well as passwords (for those who’ve opted in to Samsung Pass).
This, in return, allows one to restore any backed up devices. Like, for instance, I can instantly transform my Galaxy Note 9 into my 2013 Samsung Galaxy S4 or one of the random Galaxy J devices I was testing last year.
Given that Samsung devices automatically start syncing all the gallery app’s contents (photos and videos) immediately one signs in to their Samsung account, Samsung has so far been generous enough to match Google’s cloud offering: 15GB.
That is all good but Samsung has been notifying some users that starting June 1st, that 15GB of free storage it has been offering will be reduced by two-thirds to just 5GB.
So, for anyone who’s never registered for a Samsung account on their Samsung device, now may be the best time to get one in order to secure the extra 10 gigabytes of storage that are being taken away.
Samsung has been adding and removing features to Samsung Cloud over the last few months. Late last year, it made Samsung Cloud accessible from the web. Early this year, the company stopped syncing app data.
Samsung charges Kshs 100 and Kshs 300 for more storage (50 and 200GB respectively) even though those plans are not open to users in Kenya.
While it’s easy to just disable automatic photo and image backup (because, Google Photos) and other things like app installation files (who does that?), contacts backup and the like since Google already does so, a little more storage never hurt anyone now, has it ever?
