Canon is closing down its cloud-based image storage service today, 31 January 2020.
Irista was launched under its current name in 2014, but was originally unveiled as Project1709 back in 2012. Although you could get some storage for free, you paid to get more online back-up space for your pictures and video.
Canon sent out warnings about the closure well in advance, but if you've been putting off doing anything about it, January 31st is the last possible day.
Canon has provided a help page to talk users through the close-down of the service. To download your images you go to your account profile page and click on the link provided. Your images will be downloaded as a series of 4GB Zip files; the basic free Irista account gave you up to 15GB of storage, but the maximum $129.99 plan let you archive 10TB of pictures and videos, which will be a lot of Zip files!
Cloud-based storage systems are championed as a perfect way for photographers to archive, store and back-up their images in recent years. But this is not the first service to be withdrawn - leaving users with the headache of where to store their images next. Earlier this year, for instance, Flickr ended its free 1TB storage option following its acquisition by SmugMug.
As a way of saying thank you, however, Canon has been offering Irista members two months' complimentary subscription to Adobe's Creative Cloud Lightroom plan, with 1Tb storage. Canon's cloud dreams may be over for now, but Irista's users can at least sample Adobe's alternative.
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