Photobucket Discontinues Free Accounts and Deactivates Users' Access

Photobucket , the popular image and media hosting service, has started sending cancellation emails to its free users. The company informs users that it will no longer support free subscriptions, resulting in the deactivation of their accounts.

While deactivated accounts are not deleted, all stored images and video files remain in storage. To regain access to their media and continue using the service, users are presented with the option to sign up for a free trial or choose one of the three available subscription plans. Unfortunately, this seems to be the only way to export their media from the platform.

In July 2017, Photobucket angered its users after introducing changes to its Terms of Service without warning and disabling third-party sharing and embedding features for all accounts, which resulted in dummy images being displayed on countless websites. At the time, Photobucket requested a payment of $399 per year from users to reactivate third-party image hosting, when the feature was free before. This decision caused a mass exodus of users who sought out alternative image hosting services. Then, Photobucket changed its strategy in May 2018 by introducing cheaper plans starting at $1.99 per month and temporarily restoring hosted images for free users.

Now the company is deactivating those free accounts and has published a help page on its support website with additional information. Users can download their images and videos if they sign up for a free trial, which requires a credit card, or if they subscribe to one of Photobucket's paid plans.

The subscription plans offered by Photobucket start at $6 per month or $65 per year. Currently, the company is running a birthday sale that provides subscribers with a Plus account for $50 per year.