ThisLife Shutting Down, Will Be Replaced by ThisLife by Shutterfly

Jeff Weisbein -

We previously reviewed a photo sharing and storage service called ThisLife, shortly thereafter the company was acquired by Shutterfly (clearly as a result of our review, kidding) in January. Today, ThisLife has announced that it will be shutting down the current version of the service on September 12, 2013.  In an email to ThisLife customers, the company notes that while it is shutting down the current version of ThisLife, it’s not dead.  The next generation of ThisLife will include many of the features that have been requested by customers. Additionally, as thank you for the support, ThisLife will be offering all existing customers a year of the new service for free.

Customers have two options in terms of preserving their photos and videos:

  1. You can leave your photos and videos safely where they are. When ThisLife by Shutterfly reopens, your photos and videos will be one click away. If you choose option one, your photos will be imported into the new service as high resolution JPEGs.
  2. If you don’t want to do that, you can get the originals now by downloading all your photos and videos in their original formats now. Then once the new service launches, you will be able to add all those photos and videos to the new ThisLife by Shutterfly with a single click.

In terms of paying customers, if you have been paying for your subscription monthly, the automatic monthly billing will cease immediately. If you have been paying for your subscription annually, you will be refunded for the unused months of your subscription.

Unfortunately, two features that will not be preserved are face tags and Stories.  The ThisLife team writes:

The most difficult part of this transition is that although your photos and videos will be preserved, the face tags and Stories you created on ThisLife will not be brought over to the new service. We truly apologize for this inconvenience.

You can read the ThisLife Migration FAQ for more information.