Amazon Drive will be closed in 2023, with no effect on Amazon Photos

This morning Amazon informed its customers that the "Drive" cloud storage service will cease operations in 2023. In March of 2011, Amazon introduced a "secure cloud storage service for Amazon customers to backup their files." Customers got 5GB of free space with apps for Android, iOS, and the internet.

Amazon is informing customers that “files stored on Amazon Drive that are not supported by Amazon Photos” are no longer accessible. Amazon made it clear today that it will not be shutting down its Apple or Google Photos competitor, and this Drive deprecation is designed to "more fully focus our efforts on photos and video storage with Amazon Photos." Pictures and videos should already be accessible in Amazon Photos.

On January 31, 2023, Amazon Drive will not allow new uploads. Users will no longer be able to view or download past material starting December 31, 2023, and you're urged to save local copies before then. This FAQ page contains step-by-step instructions for downloading your files, managing your paid subscription, and obtaining additional assistance.

Even if cloud storage usage is low, it feels quite strange for a firm to shut down something as fundamental as cloud storage in this day and age.