Keepr Most photo apps ask which resolution tier you want. Keepr's larger plans do something different: they keep the actual file your camera made, untouched, next to the copy you browse.
What an original is#
The file exactly as it came off your camera or phone — full resolution, full quality, nothing re-encoded. It's what a print lab wants for anything larger than a postcard, and what you'd want if you were handing your photographs to someone in twenty years.
Keepr stores it in addition to the browsable copy, not instead of it. The album still loads quickly, because everyday viewing uses the smaller one.
Which plans#
500 GB and above — personal plans or Family Hub plans.
For a hub, the hub's plan decides, so a member on a free personal account uploading into a Family Hub or Legacy Hub gets originals kept for their photos too.
Note that a hub being paid-for isn't enough on its own: a hub below the 500 GB line doesn't clear it. The pricing page shows which do.
You choose which photos keep an original#
Being on a qualifying plan makes originals available. It doesn't keep one for everything you upload — you pick the photos, one at a time.
In the upload screen, Preserve originals → Select photos puts a tick box on each photo in the batch. Only the ones you tick keep their untouched camera file. Nothing is ticked for you.
That's deliberate. A whole camera roll rarely contains a whole camera roll's worth of photos you'd print, and an original is several times the size of the browsable copy. Choosing means the big files are the ones you actually wanted.
Business hubs work the other way round: a single switch keeps the original of every photo in an upload, because delivering client work needs all of them.
Photos, not videos#
Originals are kept for photos. Video is stored at 720p on every plan and the original video file isn't retained.
Worth being explicit about, because "we keep your originals" naturally sounds like it covers everything you upload, and here it doesn't.
They use real storage#
An original is typically several times the size of the browsable copy, so a library with originals uses noticeably more space than the same library without.
That's the trade, and it's why originals start on the larger plans — they're the plans with room for it.
You can remove them later#
This is the part people don't expect, and it's the reason originals aren't a permanent tax on your quota.
Once you've printed a photo — or decided you never will — you can remove its original and keep the photo. The browsable version stays exactly where it is, in every album, for everyone who could see it. Only the large file goes.
So the sensible lifecycle is: keep originals while they might be needed, then reclaim the space. See Free up space after printing.
Removing an original is permanent — it can't be regenerated from the smaller copy.
Getting one out#
On a plan that keeps originals, downloading a photo gives you the original file. See Download your photos.