Amazon Drive

Amazon's cloud locker, unlimited for $60 a year until it was not, closed at the end of 2023 in favour of Amazon Photos

Shut down
19902026

Amazon Cloud Drive launched on 29 March 2011 with 5 GB free storage and the Cloud Player music locker, was renamed Amazon Drive in 2016 and offered unlimited storage for $59.99 a year from March 2015 to June 2017. Amazon announced on 29 July 2022 that Drive would close on 31 December 2023, keeping only photos and videos in Amazon Photos.

Timeline [edit]

  1. 2011
  2. 29 March 2011 Launch
    Amazon Cloud Drive and Cloud Player

    5 GB free; music locker ahead of Apple and Google.

  3. 2015
  4. 26 March 2015 Feature
    Unlimited storage for $59.99 a year

    Unlimited photos for $11.99.

  5. 2016
  6. 2016 Rebrand
    Renamed Amazon Drive
  7. 2017
  8. 8 June 2017 Decline
    Unlimited plan withdrawn

    1 TB for $59.99 instead.

  9. 2022
  10. 29 July 2022 Shutdown announced
    Amazon Drive to close 31 December 2023

    Photos and videos stay in Amazon Photos.

  11. 31 October 2022 Decline
    Apps removed from the stores

    Uploads end 31 January 2023.

  12. 2023
  13. 31 December 2023 Shutdown
    Amazon Drive closes

    Non-photo files deleted unless downloaded.

The site through time

Browse amazon.com/clouddrive as it was, via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine:

2011 2013 2015 2017 2019 2021 2023 Full archive →

Ownership [edit]

Amazon 2011–2023 Founded

Why it shut down [edit]

Official line: Amazon told customers on 29 July 2022 that Amazon Drive would close on 31 December 2023 so it could concentrate on Amazon Photos: the Drive apps left the app stores on 31 October 2022, uploads stopped on 31 January 2023, and after the end of 2023 files other than photos and videos were deleted unless downloaded. Photos and videos stayed available through Amazon Photos, which is included with Prime.

Our analysis: Cloud Drive was Amazon's consumer answer to Dropbox, launched alongside its music locker and never given the attention of AWS or Prime. Its unlimited $59.99 plan of 2015 was the most generous storage deal on the market and, predictably, was abused and withdrawn within two years. What Amazon actually wanted was the photo library, because Prime Photos kept people in Prime; a general file drive did not. Closing Drive and keeping Photos was the honest version of that.

History [edit]

A locker with a music player

Amazon Cloud Drive arrived on 29 March 2011 with 5 GB free for any files and, the reason for the launch, Amazon Cloud Player: music bought from Amazon MP3 was stored free and any music you uploaded could be streamed to a browser or an Android phone. It beat Apple and Google to a music locker by months and annoyed the record labels, who thought a licence was needed. The file side was straightforward: web upload, later desktop sync clients and mobile apps, and it was where Kindle documents and Fire tablet photos quietly went.

In March 2015 Amazon offered two headline plans, unlimited photos for $11.99 a year and unlimited everything for $59.99, undercutting Dropbox, Google and Microsoft by a wide margin. People uploaded whole disk arrays. On 8 June 2017 the unlimited plan was withdrawn for new customers and replaced by 1 TB for $59.99 and 100 GB for $11.99, and Cloud Drive, by then renamed Amazon Drive, settled into being the storage behind Amazon Photos, the free unlimited photo backup for Prime members.

Photos stay, files go

On 29 July 2022 Amazon emailed Drive users: the service would end on 31 December 2023. The iOS and Android apps came out of the stores on 31 October 2022, uploads through Drive stopped on 31 January 2023, and files that were not photos or videos had to be downloaded before the end of 2023 or be lost. Photos and videos remained in Amazon Photos, which took over the apps and the Prime benefit. Amazon Drive's tenure had been twelve years, and most of its customers had never thought of it as anything but the place their photos happened to be.

The domain today

amazon.com/clouddrive redirects to Amazon Photos.

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Sources [edit]

  1. Amazon launches Cloud Drive digital locker, Cloud Player Digital Trends 29 March 2011 [archived]
  2. Amazon goes after Dropbox, Google, Microsoft with unlimited Cloud Drive storage TechCrunch 26 March 2015 [archived]
  3. Amazon has killed off its unlimited data storage deal The Verge 8 June 2017 [archived]
  4. Amazon Drive is shutting down next year, not Photos 9to5Google 29 July 2022 [archived]
  5. Amazon Drive is shutting down on December 31, 2023 AppleInsider 29 July 2022 [archived]
  6. Amazon is shutting down Amazon Drive at the end of 2023 gHacks 14 November 2022 [archived]

Last verified: 16 August 2026. Spotted an error? Suggest an edit (corrections with sources are reviewed and applied).