Google Photos is the best way to back up all the photos and videos you take from your Android phone. But it is not the only media backup service out there. OneDrive, Dropbox, and other cloud storage services also allow importing your photos and videos to the cloud. Many Android smartphone makers also bundle their in-house cloud storage service with their devices. Xiaomi provides 5GB of free storage space on Xiaomi Cloud for backing up contacts, messages, device settings, photos, and videos. But the Chinese company could soon end its Gallery Sync feature.

Kacper Skrzypek, a popular name in the MIUI community, found an upcoming announcement from Xiaomi to its cloud customers informing them about the shutdown of Gallery Sync later this year. To make the transition easier for its customers, the Chinese smartphone maker will partner with Google Photos and provide a way to migrate your backed up media content to the latter. And if you don't use Google Photos, there will also be an option to download the content on your Xiaomi device or PC. Other Xiaomi Cloud features will not be affected by this shutdown.

If you were paying for additional cloud storage space on Xiaomi Cloud, the company plans to stop billing you later this year and issue a full refund soon after.

The message from Xiaomi has placeholder dates, indicating that the feature's termination timeline has not been fully finalized yet. But it confirms that the Gallery Sync shutdown will occur later this year. And sometime in 2023, all your photos backed up to Xiaomi's cloud service will be deleted, and you won't be able to migrate your photos from Xiaomi Cloud to Google Photos after that.

Xiaomi seemingly intends to shut down Gallery Sync in phases across regions split into three groups. Similarly, the Google Photos tool and cloud data would be deleted on three different dates for the groups in 2023. Apparently, Xiaomi will only end Gallery Sync in countries outside China, hinting that it might be deprecating the feature due to low user uptake.