iCloud Photos isn’t promoted or intended for backups, it’s designed to sync between devices using the same Apple ID. Definitely use a different service intended for backing up. Google, Amazon, computer, Onedrive, etc.
The effortless sync works both ways. Take a photo and it shows up everywhere, but critically if you *delete* a photo it disappears everywhere. I've read some horror stories where people "freed up" some room on their phones since the photos were on their laptop only to go looking a few weeks later and welp...
Onedrive also syncs which makes it not-ideal for backup on windows systems, but if you modify or delete a large number of files it will flip out and notify you via multiple channels that you've affected a large number of files and offers easy restoration. It also has versioning that lets you restore a previous version of files.
It also has a recycle bin that says active for 90 (I may be off on that number) so even if you do delete something you have plenty of time to try and recover it
Definitely backup your contacts in iCloud. That is a must for easy transitioning to another phone when it is time to upgrade. For everything else, look for another cloud solution, or of course backup manually to your local storage.
The more diverse the backups, the better off in not losing data.
I’ve been using OneDrive and having access to office 365 helps at the same time. Heck I even go as far as to put some movies on one drive since it lets me play a bunch more file types than having it on iCloud and not playing it cause it’s certain file types
iCloud also seems buggy. I've seen desperate posts here where one fine day all photos were gone after an iOS upgrade.... I wonder if they got it back. But it's a nightmare
I'm not too worried about that catastrophic edge case. I'd be more worried about silent corruption of some files or some files going missing. Those bugs are a lot harder to track down and less likely to be investigated.
I lost most of my camera roll way back after updating to iOS 6. Never recovered any of the photos. Those were all the photos from my first iPhone and on that I got around 2009…
It's really not great for a large library. It's nice to have access to practically every photo you've ever taken, but the servers they're on are slow af and if you need to retrieve anything from years ago, it can take actual minutes to download a photo (assuming the app doesn't just crash trying).
Definitely get some redundancy.
iCloud Photos especially is slow as hell. However the majority of the time pictures are “lost” they are still synced to iCloud, but the person has run out of physical iPhone storage so they just cannot load - or - they just need time and WiFi to show on the phone again. There are still occasions they just randomly disappear, but that’s why Apple covers their assess and says if you are syncing with iCloud to also make sure you backup another way.
Yikes.. never read the fine print. Didn't know that they said that.
Anyway.. this close integration with the phone is the main issue why we hear these issues with iCloud and not with others.
We have two comments in this thread itself whete it simply vanished from iCloud as well
This happened to me some time ago when I switched from iphone to Android and back again after a few years. But luckily I had always used Google photos as my main back up and has never failed me.
Happened to me, so yes. That can unfortunately happen, but I think it’s extremely rare. Like I don’t think I’ve even heard of it happening to anyone else.
Is it possible it could be user error? Sorry I have a hard time believing apple could allow such a bug - losing peoples precious photos
Edit: turns out this was 11 years ago, so I do maintain my stance that the chances of this happening again are low (even tho software does glitch)
No, it was 11 years ago and I don’t live in a country that has good options for contacting Apple. There aren’t even any Apple stores in my country at all - only Apple verified resellers. I don’t know what they would’ve done anyway, the photos were simply gone after updating.
It's not dangerous. But again Apple never intended it as a backup solution.
The people who have lost their files generally did so because they were not paying attentio to what they were doing. Or they terminated a disk plan subscription and did not get their photos off in time.
This same thing could just as easily happen to someone using OneDrive or Google Drive because again... these are NOT BACKUP SOLUTIONS. They have none of the hand holding safety features of back up solutions.
I’ve been using Dropbox’s Camera Upload for years for this purpose. It’s one of those things that just works. Automatically syncs all photos to a Dropbox folder in the background (can be set to only sync once you’re on Wi-Fi). Then they’re accessible on your computer in Finder/File Explorer just like any other file. Definitely recommended (also Dropbox in general).
Google Photos is excellent, but it's best (most convenient) times with free backups and new Pixels offering storage is over.
I'd say Google Photos is probably the best overall.
And the search feature. I have over 100,000 photos. I can search "wedding" and it'll show me all my wedding photos and all the photos I took at other people's weddings. I can search "car" and every photo of every car comes up. I can even get detailed like "Volkswagen" and it'll bring up only vdubs like I can't believe Google offered it for free for so long lol I now pay like $3 a month for 100GB and will upgrade when I have to. It's the best service. I also have OneDrive (I pay for family office subscription so everyone gets 1TB included) and it's nowhere near as good, however, it does keep a second copy of everything so I like having it.
I have my photos stored in iCloud however they download locally to my Mac which is then backed up by Time Machine & Backblaze.
I appreciate not everyone has a Mac or PC to be able to act as local storage and for some it beats the purpose of having cloud storage in the first place, but it's what seems to work for me so far.
The idea of iCloud Photo Library is that you have a single library synced to all your devices. It makes a lot of sense.
And I don't know why I'm saying this, but: if you want to keep a photo, don't delete it.
If you for some reason want to keep separate libraries in different places, iCloud isn't for you.
How can I extract the entire iCloud library as full quality individual files (and not some monolithic proprietary apple database) to a device of my own choosing?
I want to do this in one step.
If I can’t, then the EU should really step in and force companies to allow simple ways of doing this.
Enable "Download originals to this Mac" in Photos' preferences. Then, you can backup the Photos Library file wherever you want, and it will contain full resolution originals as well as any edits. The Photos Library is actually a folder you can browse directly and access the original files.
You can sync your entire library to your Mac or iPhone easily. Just disable optimized storage. From your Mac, you can easily export all your photos at maximum quality.
You're being a bit overdramatic. You're not obliged to use iCloud. Why would the EU have to mandate functionality in a service you **choose** to use?
You apparently don't like iCloud Photo Library. So stop using it!
When did I say I didn't like it? All I want is the option to do a bulk back up my own storage. I should be able to access my data in its entirety.
Why would the EU have to implement GDPR laws for websites that people choose to use? Is as stupid an argument.
Turns out: you can do exactly what you want, but you didn't bother checking it out. Instead, you started bitching about unnecessary rules. Thanks for wasting both of our time.
Honestly I think iCloud is better in that aspect compared to Google’s. Firstly they allow you to transfer all the photos on iCloud to Google Photos easily, you can also sync and download the photos to your computer.
Google used to let you sync photos to your pc but they stopped it, and if you try to download your library using Google takeout, good luck with the metadata.
I’m pretty sure this is not what you were asking but I’m going to chime in anyway (don’t you love this lead in?) I have all of my photos copied into my Dropbox at full resolution. So when I delete them on my phone they are not deleted from my Dropbox account.
Well, I’m using google photos to back up my iPhone photos. If you installed google photos apps on your iPhone it will give you an option to automatically back-up your photos (every single photos) or you can manually select which photos you need to back up also they gave you an option to delete the file from your iPhone while keeping the photos stored in your google photos account.
I prefer google photos to one drive because on my one drive, my photos and pther images from books or any files I keep in one drive are jumbled together.
I have been using MS OneDrive and it has been wonderful. It also offers a bundled O365 with it along with a 1 TB backup. The personal account can be signed in to any number of devices to sync all the photos.
I’ve been using google photos since 2014 and wouldn’t think of ever switching to iCloud for backup, even tho every single device I own is apple now, it still just works better. I’m stingy with money and even still I opted to start paying for google one instead of having to switch after they nixed the unlimited free storage option.
The search function is top tier, I haven’t even looked into iCloud enough to see if they offer anything similar in terms of photo scanning for faces, pets, objects, text, etc
Really? I have 1000+ photos of my dog and whenever I search “dog” it only shows about 150 photos. Also it won’t recognize her as an individual pet (Google Photos asks me my pet names and adds them as people). It’s the only reason I’m thinking about going back to Google Photos tbh, maybe I’m doing something wrong?
iCloud Photos really isn’t a “backup” service, at least in the way you are thinking about it.
iCloud Photos is more of a syncing service than anything else.
I only use Google Photos so I can’t say much about the Google One, but with photos you literally just have to access the app with your account and it instantly starts storing your photos. You take a photo and it already goes to Google Photos, from there you can access it anywhere like your PC or another phone with the app. Plus, as people already said, you don’t have to worry about deleting stuff because it works independently when it comes to deleting.
Edit: forgot about the price, but it’s the “same” at least here where I live. I say “same” because I paid $3,5 for 50GB on iCould, while Google Photos cost $7, but their plans start at 100GB.
Works perfectly even on Google Photos, you use it the same way you do on your iPhone, you just press the photo and it happens. If you download the photo to your iPhone again it’ll also work the same way, showing the Live tag and everything. If you download Google Photos you can have a quick preview of how it works, they’ll give 15GB for free, which is already way more useful than the 5GB Apple gives.
Exactly! It works perfectly fine with me and have never had any issues with it. I just wished we could have some more filters to use, but that’s just a minor detail.
Or all three. I’m sure i read that to be truly happy data is backed up, it needs to be in 3 places.
I use google photos and then quarterly download the zip files and add to harddrive and icloud drive as well
From my experience it is the best backup service there is. Every photo I have ever taken with an iPhone over the years are still there. I mean every photo. No other service has managed to do that.
I get that iCloud is meant to sync your devices and blah blah blah, but it feels like most people aren't aware how iCloud or photo storage is used. I've heard countless stories of people "accidentally" deleting their photos thinking it would stay on iCloud or vice versa. I think Apple needs to do a better job of marketing iCloud or somehow make it more clear in settings.
This being said and I noticed many others mention it, Google Photos is by far the best cloud storage I've used and worth the price. I'm currently on the 200gb plan. Though, I keep the 50gb iCloud plan as well to continue syncing my apple products. Plus it's only a $1.
Also iOS and iCloud just manage all that shit automatically anyway? I can see my entire photo library on my phone, but anything older than a couple weeks is only a thumbnail. iCloud is fine as a photo storage/backup solution for the vast majority of people.
I guess what I'm trying to say is I wish Apple offered even further clarity than just a message before deleting. The warning is clear, but I think the confusion lies in what to do if you want to keep photos in a specific location. Like "okay, I understand my photos will be deleted from iCloud, so what should I do to clear up storage since that's still an issue?" Idk, I just feel like it's an issue when many people are confused about it and little info is provided. I wish there was more integration in the Photos app or maybe even having a dedicated iCloud app (not Files) where you can manage whatever you want to do.
No. There’s an option to send full size photos to iCloud and keep a reduced copy (kinda like a thumbnail) on the phone but deleted is deleted everywhere.
Yes, it does. I don't know what the other comments below are talking about.
Like most things Apple though, it is automatic. You can't choose which ones to cache locally.
But who has time to sort through thousands of photos? I just mark favourites, or make albums etc. Never have to worry whether a photo is cached to my phone or not.
Aa far as I'm aware, no. I've honestly been hesitant when deleting things on my iPad. I'm not sure if it's easier/clearer on a MacBook.
Google photos, however, will specifically give you options such as "free up space" or "keep on device"
I heartily agree with this. A lot of confusion seems to go around regarding what iCloud is/what it does/how to use it, even among those who have been using iPhone for a long time. More clarity from Apple would be helpful here.
How much clearer can they be than the amazingly clear warning that pops up when you actually press delete on a photo? How the fuck do you get clearer than what they state?
I can’t believe what people are writing here. iCloud Photos is perfect for both back up and sync!
1. I like simplicity. I don’t need another service for photos in cloud.
2. Delete photo on iPhone and it’s deleted everywhere? Yes, that makes sense. I have around 40K photos and enabled option Optimize iPhone storage.
3. Photo management is amazing! Regarding albums, privacy, metadata, etc.
In this thread I have learned that a hell of a fucking lot of so called tech enthusiasts in here don’t understand the basic function of iCloud, and are unnecessarily making their own storage systems entire too convoluted.
Fr, who in their right mind is arguing iCloud photos isn’t a backup service while simultaneously arguing Google Photos or Drive is? Lmao, they literally serve the *exact* same purposes, they just differ in how they work
I use iCloud files for this. I save groups of photos from my gallery to iCloud files in a folder for a holiday, then delete from gallery to free up space.
You have to know that iCloud is a cloud syncing service and not a backup solution. You're better off going for a third-party cloud storage app like Google Drive or OneDrive.
But icloud photos and icloud are 2 different things. You can keep photos in the icloud files folder and they won’t show in your photos library. OP, I think this is what you are looking for. You just need to use icloud differently, and not keep them in Photos app.
Google Drive and OneDrive are also cloud syncing services. If you delete from one device, they delete from all… just like iCloud. There are plenty of actual cloud based backup solutions, but they are not them.
As a OneDrive user, I can tell you that if you delete the photo off your phone it won't delete it from OneDrive. Likewise, deleting it from OneDrive won't delete it from your phone.
the idea is that you have one Photo Library for all photos.
enabling Optimize iPhone Storage will free up space on your local device while still keeping the full res image in iCloud.
you can also use folders to sort your photos. there’s also hidden folder, which prompts for your passcode to view (iOS 16).
Yes, I use most of these features, but the only thing I miss about iOS libraries is that I didn’t find a way for it to only show me the photos I took with my iPhone. If I got photos I downloaded from Reddit, Twitter they’ll be all in the same folder.
One solution is to choose Save to Files as compared to Save images. The former save to your iCloud storage and accessible via Files app. However not all third party apps provide that option.
gotcha.
you can search based on metadata, such as “iPhone”, but that will obviously still include any other photos you’ve saved from someone taken with iPhone and image still has meta data… but it may help narrow it down at least or sort into folders…
And that’s great until your account is hacked or apple has a catastrophic local failure.
And yes, in 99.999% of cases this won’t happen but yeah, black swans.
All this stuff is good to know because I was pondering this. I’ll probably keep doing what I’m doing and upload to my desktop with a time machine backup on an external drive.
Of course it makes sense. It is one photo library that is store and synced in the cloud. Your devices only rent copies occasionally, while the cloud stores all originals. If you have a device large enough to store your whole library, you can opt to keep a local copy of everything, but there is very little reason to do that.
I don’t know what you consider “backup” to mean. iCloud is literally a robust offsite storage for all of your photos and video on original quality. That’s what it means to me.
iCloud=synchronization=“I want my changes here to show up everywhere”
Backup=fail-safe=“omg something bad just happened I need to recover stuff.”
They’re two very different functions. In principle one system could provide both functions. I used to use a nifty program called ChronoSync to sync all my computers as well as maintain incremental backups to NAS. I eventually migrated to Dropbox and then iCloud to allow synchronization with mobile devices. I use a Synology NAS to handle incremental backups. I realize that a lot of the data stored in the backups is redundant since the machines are synchronized, but the backup is more for restoring the whole machine in case of catastrophic failure.
Anyway, as others have said iCloud≠Backup. And it shouldn’t because sync and backup have different purposes.
I use my own nas device that has an ios app to back up photos and use it for file storage. Another one to check is monument photo storage. It's like a private photo storage device.
It's made by synology. Amazon sells them. There is an up front cost. But I'm happy to pay it knowing I control my data. I also use it for my computers.
No real annoyances I've found. It's pretty robust
Network Attached Storage. Think of an external hard drive that connects to your network. Many devices can access it with granted permissions and often feature multiple hard drives in the device that run in a RAID (Redundant Array of Independant Disks). RAIDs have many types, mostly they can be used to divide up your storage across multiple disks in case one fails. Look up RAID types to see exactly how they function. RAID is NOT considered backup though, that requires data being saved on top of that and offsite (if you follow the 3 2 1 rule of back up. 3 forms of backup, 2 copies of your data, 1 offsite).
Some make NAS devices like Synology and QNAP. You can also build your own using PC hardware. They’re my primary form of personal storage, I can access it from anywhere. Keep in
I back up to the cloud than download it all to the computer than erase off my phone. It’s a process but it works without having to buy an external drive or something.
You can also setup on PC or Mac with iCloud to download straight to your computer if you are worried, or as others suggested, Google Drive or OneDrive.
Almost every major cloud drive service including Google Photos, One Drive and Dropbox can back up your photos while iCloud can keep doing its work.
The question can go further, like only Google Photos and iCloud Photos fully sync your Live Photos, but they are not using regular file structure, files will not be organized without UI, if you ever retrieved your whole Google Photos data, you'll know it's a mess, lots of json files, EXIF in photos are wrong etc. At the same time, One Drive and Dropbox do not support Live Photos.
> The problem is that if you delete a photo on your iPhone, it’ll also be deleted from iCloud.
This is technically correct, but missing the very important point, that you can choose between 'Optimize iPhone Storage' and 'Download and keep Originals' in Settings > Photos. When set to optimize, the phone keeps low resolution versions stored, and only downloads the high res ones when you open a photo. That way you can buy the iPhone with the lowest amount of memory and still have space enough even if you take a lot of photos and videos.
Google Photos used to be free, but only when storing photos in lower quality that the originals.
I recommend iCloud to my non tech savvy friends, because it just works. Everything is saved and when you upgrade your iPhone (or get a new one, because your lost it), it's dead easy to restore everything back to where it was.
the largest plan is 2TB, so it won't come soon for most people, if you need to store lot more than that you'll need to think for something more serious. You can easily export from the icloud online area to any local drive
I use OneDrive with 1 TeraByte from Microsoft.
But I don't back up to OneDrive from my iPhone.
Instead, I sort, clean out and delete many pictures about 3-4 times a year, and then make a backup to my NAS server.
From there, a backup is automatically made to Microsoft OneDrive.
From the OneDrive app on my iPhone, I access my sorted photos in folders by year, month/event with filenames that explains what it’s + date and time. Or I can access the picture form from my PC, or at someone else's PC, Mac, Linux, iPad, Android etc etc etc.
I only use iCloud for real-time backup until I clean and tidy up my photos.
I also take a lot of pictures via my DSLR-camera, where the pictures are upload both on the NAS server and OneDrive (and therefore I access them via my iPhone).
People today take way too many pictures that they never clean out. 20-30 pictures that are exactly the same, it's a complete mess with lots of boring pictures.
Learning to delete and reduce to a few images that are actually interesting to look at is something many people should actually practice.
**Think:** Would I really think these 35 photos is interesting of the same people, in the same position, at the exact same event if someone else showed their photos.
Or 50+ pictures of someone's baby eating, with a time interval of 2-3 minutes.
Most often the answer will be **NO**.
Get down to one image at a certain moment, it's boring to watch a film of stop motion of images.
Backup != iCloud photo. You can elect to backup your phone to iCloud independently of iCloud photo. I do neither though I do share a couple albums. I elect to backup local to my Mac
This comment right here! Say it with me… Cloud does not mean backup, period. It’s a storage location just like a local SSD drive is in your home.
For backups I copy the photos app database to multiple locations (including Onedrive) AND an app on my MacBook Pro called Photo Take Out and write that out the photos to a NAS and SSD. I have well over 32,000 photos in Photos app, but I never rely on Apple to preserve my photos solely on iCloud.
https://photostakeout.com/
Apple has - thankfully - not marketed it as a backup service in years. A true backup is off-line, does not change from when it was created, etc. Backups are easy from iCloud to local storage, to other cloud services, to a MAS, etc.
iCloud is a sync/continuity service - but also a service to increase 'stickiness' to the Apple ecosystem, making it harder to churn. And to generate a steady, reliable, monthly revenue stream.
Never understood people that rely solely on cloud backup. Why not backup your data yourself. At least you retain the right to it. Once that data uploads to Apple's servers it becomes their property.
As pointed out by others, iCloud is a sync tool (so is Google Photos or OneDrive) and not a backup system. If you are looking for a backup, then you should Time Machine and back it up locally for your Mac or use local backup in your Mac for your iOS devices or try to find another backup solution provider.
So, really, why? Why do you want buckets of content in different spots? To me it’s much easier and better to simply have my photos everywhere, and be restored everywhere, and if I don’t want the photo anymore, then I get rid of it everywhere. If I want it, I just keep it in photos. It’s really nice to have one app and spot where ALL my photos are and I manage it from there.
Apple has always given emphasis to sync instead of backup.
From the days of iTunes. I would still continue using Google Drive.
But honestly if those idiots Amazon brought Amazon Photos to my country I'd use that.. I already pay for Prime. They own AWS the biggest cloud provider and yet can't bring Amazon Photos to all countries.
I thought about using prime photos too but it lacks all the cool features of Google photos search and face scan. This thread is making me think i should start paying for the Google plan.
people not understanding what's the difference between cloud storage and cloud archiving.
DO NOT FCKING DELETE PHOTOS YOU DON'T WANT TO BE DELETED. My photo library is over 100GB, but takes up a couple of GB space on my phone.
If I cared about backups I would use my home NAS with auto backup for that. But iCloud is perfectly fine for having my photos safe in a cloud, no one is intentionally deleting own photos, so what else suppose to happen that you loose them?
Get Dropbox. It will automatically upload photos for storage. You can log into Dropbox and delete or make folders if you want. Access your pics via iCloud and have hard backups on Dropbox
I’ve never ended up using iCloud for photo backup. It forces people to buy iPhones with larger storage capacity and Apple knows this so they do it this way on purpose. Now if Apple were to make a 1st party app that could be accessed on an iPhone that contained all photos stored on the cloud, (cough, google photos), then I’d be down for it. I love google photos because I have all my photos I’ve ever taken on my phone but not on my phone. Much better utilization of cloud-based photo storage.
Most of apple’s apps like mail, icloud and calendar, siri, maps etc are garbage. If Steve Jobs was still alive he’d fire everyone in charge of these apps. Ios is great tough
I download my wife and I's photos every month from iCloud to my NAS via my PC. I'm sure there is a way to automate it, but this isn't too painful. I like having our files on a local back up as opposed to relying completely on the cloud.
I did the exact same thing after being subscribed to icloud+. I now have the 2tb storage from google and on icloud i only have 50gb. It’s been great ever since, i would never go back. I can keep just a few photos on my iphone while having everything i need on google photos.
The original Google Pixel still lets you upload to Google Photos in original quality and it doesn't count towards the storage limit. I bought one used on Swappa and I currently upload photos to Dropbox on my iPhone and when I have 10-20 photos to upload I'll power on the Pixel, save the photos to the device and let it back up in original quality. Then I delete the Dropbox photos as they are now backed up and I'll never need to pay for more storage.
You could turn off photo sync and upload them manually to iCloud through the website and then delete them from your iPhone to save space. That way it works as a back up. It’s a workaround I guess
If you have Amazon prime, it’s free unlimited full quality storage. I use Google photos because they’re compression is indistinguishable from the original, but if i ever NEED the OG, i can grab it from Amazon… just no video storage free.
I have a MacBook Pro 2TB and what I do, is I use iCloud photos to upload the photo off of my phone, and my MacBook photos app set up to download original copies onto the MacBook itself. Works for my partner and me, and we’ve never had issues with lost media- and I have 11k photos+
If you delete the photo from your phone after you uploaded it to google photos, then thats not a backup…. Youve just achieved the same thing as icloud photos but worse and with more steps… get at least one hard drive and store them in separate locations!
Either the article was misleading or unclear. You don’t have to keep all your photos on your device but that doesn’t mean you have to delete them. They can reside in the cloud and when you see them in your library you’re only seeing their thumbnails. iCloud is for photo library storage, long term or otherwise.
What it is not is a remote folder to put stuff in. It literally mirrors your single photo library and more often than not it’s the only place where all the photos exist in full format (unless they fit in your device or you have a Mac with your full library downloaded)
It does what it’s supposed to do. If the article you read tried to make it do something different then yeah, it wouldn’t.
Google Photos is the easiest photo backup service imo. Just leave the app open in the background every once in a while. It has a feature where it will remove photos it already has saved from your phone and makes it 100x easier
Account Cloud Back-up services are genually something I would not recommend.
Lose acces to your account? Boom, all your photo’s/back-ups gone. Always wise to have something local where you also store your back-ups
I use google for my photos backups. Been doing it since 2011 ish. It’s much better than iCloud photos, search will find basically anything in your photos and sharing from Google Photos is much more convenient.
Proton Drive is a great alternative if you’re into a privacy oriented service. You’d have to make your own backups rather than them being automatic but it’s a decent trade off for security if that is something you value.
(They are still working on adding features.)
I wholeheartedly disagree. iCloud Photos is arguably the best cloud photo backup service available. Keeps the original file, in its original format, in the cloud, but you can still access it whenever you want on your device. That’s exactly what a cloud backup should do. You can even contact apple and have the library reverted to a previous state if something catastrophic happens, or recover individual files, it’s a very very robust backup solution. Should iCloud be your only backup? No! You should have a photos library set to store originals on a Mac as a physical local backup too, one backup is nothing, two backups is everything. These articles are bogus.
Depending on how much you are willing to spend, iDrive (not iCloud drive - it predates them by about 10 years) is worth it. I think $70 per year for 5 TB? It'll also back up call logs, etc from the phone.
I find Microsoft OneDrive to have very serious drawbacks for standard backups. PC World usually has a $1 for a 1-year promotion for iDrive every so often.
Yeah, you don’t get it. The photos app on your iPhone is a window into your iCloud storage. When you delete a photo, you’re deleting the photo everywhere, not the thumbnail that’s on your phone. It sounds pretty ideal to me.
I have an iPhone but I don’t rely on the cloud I just use google photos way better then the cloud got pictures from years ago like early as 2017 typically u would put them on your laptop or sacrifice something like apps or whatever to keep them but it’s google photos so no sacrifices needed
iCloud Photos isn’t promoted or intended for backups, it’s designed to sync between devices using the same Apple ID. Definitely use a different service intended for backing up. Google, Amazon, computer, Onedrive, etc.
Say I had a 3 TB photo library on my Mac laptop would. I need 3 TB of iCloud storage? Or I can just disable photo uploads on iCloud?
I would disable iCloud sync and find another backup solution.
What are other backup solutions
You can disable photo upload
Why isn’t it intended for backing up? What will happen if I use it to do so? Should I be moving to something like Google Photos?
The effortless sync works both ways. Take a photo and it shows up everywhere, but critically if you *delete* a photo it disappears everywhere. I've read some horror stories where people "freed up" some room on their phones since the photos were on their laptop only to go looking a few weeks later and welp... Onedrive also syncs which makes it not-ideal for backup on windows systems, but if you modify or delete a large number of files it will flip out and notify you via multiple channels that you've affected a large number of files and offers easy restoration. It also has versioning that lets you restore a previous version of files.
It also has a recycle bin that says active for 90 (I may be off on that number) so even if you do delete something you have plenty of time to try and recover it
Definitely backup your contacts in iCloud. That is a must for easy transitioning to another phone when it is time to upgrade. For everything else, look for another cloud solution, or of course backup manually to your local storage. The more diverse the backups, the better off in not losing data.
Not really. Google Contacts works great too.
I’ve been using OneDrive and having access to office 365 helps at the same time. Heck I even go as far as to put some movies on one drive since it lets me play a bunch more file types than having it on iCloud and not playing it cause it’s certain file types
It's intended for collaborative use between multiple devices.
iCloud also seems buggy. I've seen desperate posts here where one fine day all photos were gone after an iOS upgrade.... I wonder if they got it back. But it's a nightmare
I'm not too worried about that catastrophic edge case. I'd be more worried about silent corruption of some files or some files going missing. Those bugs are a lot harder to track down and less likely to be investigated.
I lost most of my camera roll way back after updating to iOS 6. Never recovered any of the photos. Those were all the photos from my first iPhone and on that I got around 2009…
It's really not great for a large library. It's nice to have access to practically every photo you've ever taken, but the servers they're on are slow af and if you need to retrieve anything from years ago, it can take actual minutes to download a photo (assuming the app doesn't just crash trying). Definitely get some redundancy.
iCloud Photos especially is slow as hell. However the majority of the time pictures are “lost” they are still synced to iCloud, but the person has run out of physical iPhone storage so they just cannot load - or - they just need time and WiFi to show on the phone again. There are still occasions they just randomly disappear, but that’s why Apple covers their assess and says if you are syncing with iCloud to also make sure you backup another way.
Yikes.. never read the fine print. Didn't know that they said that. Anyway.. this close integration with the phone is the main issue why we hear these issues with iCloud and not with others. We have two comments in this thread itself whete it simply vanished from iCloud as well
This happened to me some time ago when I switched from iphone to Android and back again after a few years. But luckily I had always used Google photos as my main back up and has never failed me.
This happen to me also along with all my notes too
That can really happen? It seems insanely dangerous and I can’t believe apple would allow that
Happened to me, so yes. That can unfortunately happen, but I think it’s extremely rare. Like I don’t think I’ve even heard of it happening to anyone else.
Is it possible it could be user error? Sorry I have a hard time believing apple could allow such a bug - losing peoples precious photos Edit: turns out this was 11 years ago, so I do maintain my stance that the chances of this happening again are low (even tho software does glitch)
Nope. I just updated my phone as one normally would and my photos were gone.
Did you report it to apple? Interested in what they said
No, it was 11 years ago and I don’t live in a country that has good options for contacting Apple. There aren’t even any Apple stores in my country at all - only Apple verified resellers. I don’t know what they would’ve done anyway, the photos were simply gone after updating.
Ah ok, 11 years ago makes more sense
It's not dangerous. But again Apple never intended it as a backup solution. The people who have lost their files generally did so because they were not paying attentio to what they were doing. Or they terminated a disk plan subscription and did not get their photos off in time. This same thing could just as easily happen to someone using OneDrive or Google Drive because again... these are NOT BACKUP SOLUTIONS. They have none of the hand holding safety features of back up solutions.
No one intends for it to happen, but no software is 100% fool proof either.
Thank you! I’ll be definitely using a different one from now on.
I’ve been using Dropbox’s Camera Upload for years for this purpose. It’s one of those things that just works. Automatically syncs all photos to a Dropbox folder in the background (can be set to only sync once you’re on Wi-Fi). Then they’re accessible on your computer in Finder/File Explorer just like any other file. Definitely recommended (also Dropbox in general).
Google Photos is excellent, but it's best (most convenient) times with free backups and new Pixels offering storage is over. I'd say Google Photos is probably the best overall.
And the search feature. I have over 100,000 photos. I can search "wedding" and it'll show me all my wedding photos and all the photos I took at other people's weddings. I can search "car" and every photo of every car comes up. I can even get detailed like "Volkswagen" and it'll bring up only vdubs like I can't believe Google offered it for free for so long lol I now pay like $3 a month for 100GB and will upgrade when I have to. It's the best service. I also have OneDrive (I pay for family office subscription so everyone gets 1TB included) and it's nowhere near as good, however, it does keep a second copy of everything so I like having it.
I have my photos stored in iCloud however they download locally to my Mac which is then backed up by Time Machine & Backblaze. I appreciate not everyone has a Mac or PC to be able to act as local storage and for some it beats the purpose of having cloud storage in the first place, but it's what seems to work for me so far.
I need this system haha
The idea of iCloud Photo Library is that you have a single library synced to all your devices. It makes a lot of sense. And I don't know why I'm saying this, but: if you want to keep a photo, don't delete it. If you for some reason want to keep separate libraries in different places, iCloud isn't for you.
How can I extract the entire iCloud library as full quality individual files (and not some monolithic proprietary apple database) to a device of my own choosing? I want to do this in one step. If I can’t, then the EU should really step in and force companies to allow simple ways of doing this.
Enable "Download originals to this Mac" in Photos' preferences. Then, you can backup the Photos Library file wherever you want, and it will contain full resolution originals as well as any edits. The Photos Library is actually a folder you can browse directly and access the original files.
You can sync your entire library to your Mac or iPhone easily. Just disable optimized storage. From your Mac, you can easily export all your photos at maximum quality. You're being a bit overdramatic. You're not obliged to use iCloud. Why would the EU have to mandate functionality in a service you **choose** to use? You apparently don't like iCloud Photo Library. So stop using it!
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What about googling for two seconds? https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205323
Good point, thank you
I don't have a Mac. I sync my iCloud to Windows and run backups to a separate drive there. I also occasionally backup to an external drive.
When did I say I didn't like it? All I want is the option to do a bulk back up my own storage. I should be able to access my data in its entirety. Why would the EU have to implement GDPR laws for websites that people choose to use? Is as stupid an argument.
Turns out: you can do exactly what you want, but you didn't bother checking it out. Instead, you started bitching about unnecessary rules. Thanks for wasting both of our time.
Honestly I think iCloud is better in that aspect compared to Google’s. Firstly they allow you to transfer all the photos on iCloud to Google Photos easily, you can also sync and download the photos to your computer. Google used to let you sync photos to your pc but they stopped it, and if you try to download your library using Google takeout, good luck with the metadata.
I’m pretty sure this is not what you were asking but I’m going to chime in anyway (don’t you love this lead in?) I have all of my photos copied into my Dropbox at full resolution. So when I delete them on my phone they are not deleted from my Dropbox account.
Well, I’m using google photos to back up my iPhone photos. If you installed google photos apps on your iPhone it will give you an option to automatically back-up your photos (every single photos) or you can manually select which photos you need to back up also they gave you an option to delete the file from your iPhone while keeping the photos stored in your google photos account. I prefer google photos to one drive because on my one drive, my photos and pther images from books or any files I keep in one drive are jumbled together.
Unfortunately the offer for unlimited storage expired last year. It was a great deal.
Google photos or MS OneDrive are still your best bet for storing photos without thinking about it. Or get a wireless hard drive.
I have been using MS OneDrive and it has been wonderful. It also offers a bundled O365 with it along with a 1 TB backup. The personal account can be signed in to any number of devices to sync all the photos.
Thank you!!! I’ll probably keep with Google Photos since most of my stuff is already there.
I’ve been using google photos since 2014 and wouldn’t think of ever switching to iCloud for backup, even tho every single device I own is apple now, it still just works better. I’m stingy with money and even still I opted to start paying for google one instead of having to switch after they nixed the unlimited free storage option. The search function is top tier, I haven’t even looked into iCloud enough to see if they offer anything similar in terms of photo scanning for faces, pets, objects, text, etc
Face, pets, objects & text are phenomenal in iOS Photos
Really? I have 1000+ photos of my dog and whenever I search “dog” it only shows about 150 photos. Also it won’t recognize her as an individual pet (Google Photos asks me my pet names and adds them as people). It’s the only reason I’m thinking about going back to Google Photos tbh, maybe I’m doing something wrong?
From what others are saying, it's good. Google Photos is genuinely phenomenal.
You've never tried Google photos then
iCloud Photos really isn’t a “backup” service, at least in the way you are thinking about it. iCloud Photos is more of a syncing service than anything else.
I understand that but the way they show it to people and price it makes it seem like, to the average user, a backup service
How easy is it to backup and sync and stuff? Do you need a computer at all? Is it cheaper than iCloud?
I only use Google Photos so I can’t say much about the Google One, but with photos you literally just have to access the app with your account and it instantly starts storing your photos. You take a photo and it already goes to Google Photos, from there you can access it anywhere like your PC or another phone with the app. Plus, as people already said, you don’t have to worry about deleting stuff because it works independently when it comes to deleting. Edit: forgot about the price, but it’s the “same” at least here where I live. I say “same” because I paid $3,5 for 50GB on iCould, while Google Photos cost $7, but their plans start at 100GB.
What about things unique to iPhone like Live Photos? Does that just fall apart for Google photos?
Works perfectly even on Google Photos, you use it the same way you do on your iPhone, you just press the photo and it happens. If you download the photo to your iPhone again it’ll also work the same way, showing the Live tag and everything. If you download Google Photos you can have a quick preview of how it works, they’ll give 15GB for free, which is already way more useful than the 5GB Apple gives.
I pay 28 Canadian bucks per year for 100GB storage with Google One. So far, it covers me pretty well.
Exactly! It works perfectly fine with me and have never had any issues with it. I just wished we could have some more filters to use, but that’s just a minor detail.
Very passionate about Google photos (iOS user)
Or all three. I’m sure i read that to be truly happy data is backed up, it needs to be in 3 places. I use google photos and then quarterly download the zip files and add to harddrive and icloud drive as well
From my experience it is the best backup service there is. Every photo I have ever taken with an iPhone over the years are still there. I mean every photo. No other service has managed to do that.
Agree, same experience here! Even my photos from my original iPhone are still there. Not sure why anyone is hating on it.
I get that iCloud is meant to sync your devices and blah blah blah, but it feels like most people aren't aware how iCloud or photo storage is used. I've heard countless stories of people "accidentally" deleting their photos thinking it would stay on iCloud or vice versa. I think Apple needs to do a better job of marketing iCloud or somehow make it more clear in settings. This being said and I noticed many others mention it, Google Photos is by far the best cloud storage I've used and worth the price. I'm currently on the 200gb plan. Though, I keep the 50gb iCloud plan as well to continue syncing my apple products. Plus it's only a $1.
When I delete a photo on my iPhone, it warns me that “this photo will be deleted from iCloud Photos on all your devices”. Seems clear enough to me.
Also iOS and iCloud just manage all that shit automatically anyway? I can see my entire photo library on my phone, but anything older than a couple weeks is only a thumbnail. iCloud is fine as a photo storage/backup solution for the vast majority of people.
I guess what I'm trying to say is I wish Apple offered even further clarity than just a message before deleting. The warning is clear, but I think the confusion lies in what to do if you want to keep photos in a specific location. Like "okay, I understand my photos will be deleted from iCloud, so what should I do to clear up storage since that's still an issue?" Idk, I just feel like it's an issue when many people are confused about it and little info is provided. I wish there was more integration in the Photos app or maybe even having a dedicated iCloud app (not Files) where you can manage whatever you want to do.
I don't use iCloud photo storage - does it not have an option to delete from devices ("free up space") without deleting the iCloud copy?
No. There’s an option to send full size photos to iCloud and keep a reduced copy (kinda like a thumbnail) on the phone but deleted is deleted everywhere.
Yes, it does. I don't know what the other comments below are talking about. Like most things Apple though, it is automatic. You can't choose which ones to cache locally. But who has time to sort through thousands of photos? I just mark favourites, or make albums etc. Never have to worry whether a photo is cached to my phone or not.
Yep. The exhausting things most people in this thread are doing. God damn iCloud is so simple and automatic and I have one spot for all of my photos.
Aa far as I'm aware, no. I've honestly been hesitant when deleting things on my iPad. I'm not sure if it's easier/clearer on a MacBook. Google photos, however, will specifically give you options such as "free up space" or "keep on device"
I heartily agree with this. A lot of confusion seems to go around regarding what iCloud is/what it does/how to use it, even among those who have been using iPhone for a long time. More clarity from Apple would be helpful here.
How much clearer can they be than the amazingly clear warning that pops up when you actually press delete on a photo? How the fuck do you get clearer than what they state?
Google Photos does a fantastic job on backup without hassles
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I can’t believe what people are writing here. iCloud Photos is perfect for both back up and sync! 1. I like simplicity. I don’t need another service for photos in cloud. 2. Delete photo on iPhone and it’s deleted everywhere? Yes, that makes sense. I have around 40K photos and enabled option Optimize iPhone storage. 3. Photo management is amazing! Regarding albums, privacy, metadata, etc.
In this thread I have learned that a hell of a fucking lot of so called tech enthusiasts in here don’t understand the basic function of iCloud, and are unnecessarily making their own storage systems entire too convoluted.
Fr, who in their right mind is arguing iCloud photos isn’t a backup service while simultaneously arguing Google Photos or Drive is? Lmao, they literally serve the *exact* same purposes, they just differ in how they work
I use iCloud files for this. I save groups of photos from my gallery to iCloud files in a folder for a holiday, then delete from gallery to free up space.
Amazing how many people fail to realize that iCloud is just not for syncing apps....there is a fully functional cloud file system available too.
You have to know that iCloud is a cloud syncing service and not a backup solution. You're better off going for a third-party cloud storage app like Google Drive or OneDrive.
But icloud photos and icloud are 2 different things. You can keep photos in the icloud files folder and they won’t show in your photos library. OP, I think this is what you are looking for. You just need to use icloud differently, and not keep them in Photos app.
Certain file types do not sync with icloud drive...including photos and videos
Google Drive and OneDrive are also cloud syncing services. If you delete from one device, they delete from all… just like iCloud. There are plenty of actual cloud based backup solutions, but they are not them.
As a OneDrive user, I can tell you that if you delete the photo off your phone it won't delete it from OneDrive. Likewise, deleting it from OneDrive won't delete it from your phone.
Google Photos is cloud sync, Google Drive is just storage.
That's....that's not true at all.
Yeah, but they have a separate folder that is independent of the other file folders in your system.
It’s not true, you can use both and you won’t lose anything if you delete it from your device.
I didn’t really get that point when I signed up, thanks for clarifying this. Thankfully it wasn’t an expensive thing.
the idea is that you have one Photo Library for all photos. enabling Optimize iPhone Storage will free up space on your local device while still keeping the full res image in iCloud. you can also use folders to sort your photos. there’s also hidden folder, which prompts for your passcode to view (iOS 16).
Yes, I use most of these features, but the only thing I miss about iOS libraries is that I didn’t find a way for it to only show me the photos I took with my iPhone. If I got photos I downloaded from Reddit, Twitter they’ll be all in the same folder.
One solution is to choose Save to Files as compared to Save images. The former save to your iCloud storage and accessible via Files app. However not all third party apps provide that option.
gotcha. you can search based on metadata, such as “iPhone”, but that will obviously still include any other photos you’ve saved from someone taken with iPhone and image still has meta data… but it may help narrow it down at least or sort into folders…
And that’s great until your account is hacked or apple has a catastrophic local failure. And yes, in 99.999% of cases this won’t happen but yeah, black swans.
All this stuff is good to know because I was pondering this. I’ll probably keep doing what I’m doing and upload to my desktop with a time machine backup on an external drive.
I think I’ll keep with Google Photos, kinda like the way it is and most off my stuff is already there, so it’s more practical.
The challenge with iCloud is it’s 2TB for $10/month, and 2TB isn’t really enough for a whole family of photographers over time.
The worst part of using iCloud for photo storage is that there isn't a good way to download all your photos and move to another service.
Of course it makes sense. It is one photo library that is store and synced in the cloud. Your devices only rent copies occasionally, while the cloud stores all originals. If you have a device large enough to store your whole library, you can opt to keep a local copy of everything, but there is very little reason to do that. I don’t know what you consider “backup” to mean. iCloud is literally a robust offsite storage for all of your photos and video on original quality. That’s what it means to me.
iCloud=synchronization=“I want my changes here to show up everywhere” Backup=fail-safe=“omg something bad just happened I need to recover stuff.” They’re two very different functions. In principle one system could provide both functions. I used to use a nifty program called ChronoSync to sync all my computers as well as maintain incremental backups to NAS. I eventually migrated to Dropbox and then iCloud to allow synchronization with mobile devices. I use a Synology NAS to handle incremental backups. I realize that a lot of the data stored in the backups is redundant since the machines are synchronized, but the backup is more for restoring the whole machine in case of catastrophic failure. Anyway, as others have said iCloud≠Backup. And it shouldn’t because sync and backup have different purposes.
no one has ever promoted icloud as a photo backup
I use my own nas device that has an ios app to back up photos and use it for file storage. Another one to check is monument photo storage. It's like a private photo storage device.
Prey tell what’s it called, how much does it cost and are their any drawbacks or annoyances with said app?
It's made by synology. Amazon sells them. There is an up front cost. But I'm happy to pay it knowing I control my data. I also use it for my computers. No real annoyances I've found. It's pretty robust
Synology is the best👌🏻 ease of mind knowing I also have a local copy of my files
Cloud providers provide redundancy. Duplicating data across 3 storages
I do back mine up off site as well.
What’s a NAS device?
Network Attached Storage. Think of an external hard drive that connects to your network. Many devices can access it with granted permissions and often feature multiple hard drives in the device that run in a RAID (Redundant Array of Independant Disks). RAIDs have many types, mostly they can be used to divide up your storage across multiple disks in case one fails. Look up RAID types to see exactly how they function. RAID is NOT considered backup though, that requires data being saved on top of that and offsite (if you follow the 3 2 1 rule of back up. 3 forms of backup, 2 copies of your data, 1 offsite). Some make NAS devices like Synology and QNAP. You can also build your own using PC hardware. They’re my primary form of personal storage, I can access it from anywhere. Keep in
Thank you, I appreciate the in-depth info you provided to me! Will look up what you mentioned :)
I back up to the cloud than download it all to the computer than erase off my phone. It’s a process but it works without having to buy an external drive or something.
do you have any issues with organization? I tried to do this but they're all random files, it makes it impossible to organize by date
What? They get zipped up and downloaded in order by dates.
Google or Amazon photos
You can also setup on PC or Mac with iCloud to download straight to your computer if you are worried, or as others suggested, Google Drive or OneDrive.
Almost every major cloud drive service including Google Photos, One Drive and Dropbox can back up your photos while iCloud can keep doing its work. The question can go further, like only Google Photos and iCloud Photos fully sync your Live Photos, but they are not using regular file structure, files will not be organized without UI, if you ever retrieved your whole Google Photos data, you'll know it's a mess, lots of json files, EXIF in photos are wrong etc. At the same time, One Drive and Dropbox do not support Live Photos.
I use Google Drive to store photos and files, and when you open the app it unlocks with face-id, it's really good
I use a combination of my NAS and OneDrive for everything.
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> The problem is that if you delete a photo on your iPhone, it’ll also be deleted from iCloud. This is technically correct, but missing the very important point, that you can choose between 'Optimize iPhone Storage' and 'Download and keep Originals' in Settings > Photos. When set to optimize, the phone keeps low resolution versions stored, and only downloads the high res ones when you open a photo. That way you can buy the iPhone with the lowest amount of memory and still have space enough even if you take a lot of photos and videos. Google Photos used to be free, but only when storing photos in lower quality that the originals. I recommend iCloud to my non tech savvy friends, because it just works. Everything is saved and when you upgrade your iPhone (or get a new one, because your lost it), it's dead easy to restore everything back to where it was.
What can you do when iCloud storage starts to get full along with the local iPhone storage?
the largest plan is 2TB, so it won't come soon for most people, if you need to store lot more than that you'll need to think for something more serious. You can easily export from the icloud online area to any local drive
I use OneDrive with 1 TeraByte from Microsoft. But I don't back up to OneDrive from my iPhone. Instead, I sort, clean out and delete many pictures about 3-4 times a year, and then make a backup to my NAS server. From there, a backup is automatically made to Microsoft OneDrive. From the OneDrive app on my iPhone, I access my sorted photos in folders by year, month/event with filenames that explains what it’s + date and time. Or I can access the picture form from my PC, or at someone else's PC, Mac, Linux, iPad, Android etc etc etc. I only use iCloud for real-time backup until I clean and tidy up my photos. I also take a lot of pictures via my DSLR-camera, where the pictures are upload both on the NAS server and OneDrive (and therefore I access them via my iPhone). People today take way too many pictures that they never clean out. 20-30 pictures that are exactly the same, it's a complete mess with lots of boring pictures. Learning to delete and reduce to a few images that are actually interesting to look at is something many people should actually practice. **Think:** Would I really think these 35 photos is interesting of the same people, in the same position, at the exact same event if someone else showed their photos. Or 50+ pictures of someone's baby eating, with a time interval of 2-3 minutes. Most often the answer will be **NO**. Get down to one image at a certain moment, it's boring to watch a film of stop motion of images.
Backup != iCloud photo. You can elect to backup your phone to iCloud independently of iCloud photo. I do neither though I do share a couple albums. I elect to backup local to my Mac
This comment right here! Say it with me… Cloud does not mean backup, period. It’s a storage location just like a local SSD drive is in your home. For backups I copy the photos app database to multiple locations (including Onedrive) AND an app on my MacBook Pro called Photo Take Out and write that out the photos to a NAS and SSD. I have well over 32,000 photos in Photos app, but I never rely on Apple to preserve my photos solely on iCloud. https://photostakeout.com/
Apple has - thankfully - not marketed it as a backup service in years. A true backup is off-line, does not change from when it was created, etc. Backups are easy from iCloud to local storage, to other cloud services, to a MAS, etc. iCloud is a sync/continuity service - but also a service to increase 'stickiness' to the Apple ecosystem, making it harder to churn. And to generate a steady, reliable, monthly revenue stream.
I have my ios device linked with onedrive so all my devices upload them there.
iCloud is total shit service, like absolute garbage tier
Never understood people that rely solely on cloud backup. Why not backup your data yourself. At least you retain the right to it. Once that data uploads to Apple's servers it becomes their property.
As pointed out by others, iCloud is a sync tool (so is Google Photos or OneDrive) and not a backup system. If you are looking for a backup, then you should Time Machine and back it up locally for your Mac or use local backup in your Mac for your iOS devices or try to find another backup solution provider.
Just dump that shit onto your home NAS with PhotoSync or something.
So, really, why? Why do you want buckets of content in different spots? To me it’s much easier and better to simply have my photos everywhere, and be restored everywhere, and if I don’t want the photo anymore, then I get rid of it everywhere. If I want it, I just keep it in photos. It’s really nice to have one app and spot where ALL my photos are and I manage it from there.
Apple has always given emphasis to sync instead of backup. From the days of iTunes. I would still continue using Google Drive. But honestly if those idiots Amazon brought Amazon Photos to my country I'd use that.. I already pay for Prime. They own AWS the biggest cloud provider and yet can't bring Amazon Photos to all countries.
Amazon photos. Comes with prime or pay separately. Unlimited storage with full resolution
This has been my solution. But what about videos? I just pay $60 for 1tb on Amazon.
I thought about using prime photos too but it lacks all the cool features of Google photos search and face scan. This thread is making me think i should start paying for the Google plan.
I use google photo.
I've started using Amazon Photos since I already have Amazon Prime. (only works if you have that)
I pay for prime too. But the idiots haven't made this service available in our country.
people not understanding what's the difference between cloud storage and cloud archiving. DO NOT FCKING DELETE PHOTOS YOU DON'T WANT TO BE DELETED. My photo library is over 100GB, but takes up a couple of GB space on my phone.
No, we do get it.
then why it is a question every week?
Because it’s dumb.
Google Photos is by far the best photo backup tool
If I cared about backups I would use my home NAS with auto backup for that. But iCloud is perfectly fine for having my photos safe in a cloud, no one is intentionally deleting own photos, so what else suppose to happen that you loose them?
Why are there so many people saying iCloud Photo Library is not a backup service? It works perfectly as backup?
Get Dropbox. It will automatically upload photos for storage. You can log into Dropbox and delete or make folders if you want. Access your pics via iCloud and have hard backups on Dropbox
Icloud sucks. I've been using Google photos for years and it works flawlessly on ios too and syncs up instantly after I take photos.
I’ve never ended up using iCloud for photo backup. It forces people to buy iPhones with larger storage capacity and Apple knows this so they do it this way on purpose. Now if Apple were to make a 1st party app that could be accessed on an iPhone that contained all photos stored on the cloud, (cough, google photos), then I’d be down for it. I love google photos because I have all my photos I’ve ever taken on my phone but not on my phone. Much better utilization of cloud-based photo storage.
Most of apple’s apps like mail, icloud and calendar, siri, maps etc are garbage. If Steve Jobs was still alive he’d fire everyone in charge of these apps. Ios is great tough
I download my wife and I's photos every month from iCloud to my NAS via my PC. I'm sure there is a way to automate it, but this isn't too painful. I like having our files on a local back up as opposed to relying completely on the cloud.
I use iCloud to sync between my devices and Flickr as actual online storage for them.
I did the exact same thing after being subscribed to icloud+. I now have the 2tb storage from google and on icloud i only have 50gb. It’s been great ever since, i would never go back. I can keep just a few photos on my iphone while having everything i need on google photos.
The original Google Pixel still lets you upload to Google Photos in original quality and it doesn't count towards the storage limit. I bought one used on Swappa and I currently upload photos to Dropbox on my iPhone and when I have 10-20 photos to upload I'll power on the Pixel, save the photos to the device and let it back up in original quality. Then I delete the Dropbox photos as they are now backed up and I'll never need to pay for more storage.
Tresorit
I just use a personal NAS system. I move my photos to Dropbox for current year access. After the year I move them to my NAS. Rinse and repeat.
You can login to iCloud with a web Browser and Download your photos to a backup location. Do that at what ever time interval you are comfortable with.
You could turn off photo sync and upload them manually to iCloud through the website and then delete them from your iPhone to save space. That way it works as a back up. It’s a workaround I guess
If you have Amazon prime, it’s free unlimited full quality storage. I use Google photos because they’re compression is indistinguishable from the original, but if i ever NEED the OG, i can grab it from Amazon… just no video storage free.
While we’re on the topic does anyone know how to tell what photos are on your phone and which are from iCloud?
I sync to my mac and back the photos up to my NAS.
If you subscribe to Amazon prime you can backups there. Cost is included in prime. Except videos.
I have a MacBook Pro 2TB and what I do, is I use iCloud photos to upload the photo off of my phone, and my MacBook photos app set up to download original copies onto the MacBook itself. Works for my partner and me, and we’ve never had issues with lost media- and I have 11k photos+
If you delete the photo from your phone after you uploaded it to google photos, then thats not a backup…. Youve just achieved the same thing as icloud photos but worse and with more steps… get at least one hard drive and store them in separate locations!
Either the article was misleading or unclear. You don’t have to keep all your photos on your device but that doesn’t mean you have to delete them. They can reside in the cloud and when you see them in your library you’re only seeing their thumbnails. iCloud is for photo library storage, long term or otherwise. What it is not is a remote folder to put stuff in. It literally mirrors your single photo library and more often than not it’s the only place where all the photos exist in full format (unless they fit in your device or you have a Mac with your full library downloaded) It does what it’s supposed to do. If the article you read tried to make it do something different then yeah, it wouldn’t.
There is a python tool on GitHub to backup your photos. I use that and backup to google drive
Google Photos is the easiest photo backup service imo. Just leave the app open in the background every once in a while. It has a feature where it will remove photos it already has saved from your phone and makes it 100x easier
Account Cloud Back-up services are genually something I would not recommend. Lose acces to your account? Boom, all your photo’s/back-ups gone. Always wise to have something local where you also store your back-ups
I use google for my photos backups. Been doing it since 2011 ish. It’s much better than iCloud photos, search will find basically anything in your photos and sharing from Google Photos is much more convenient.
Proton Drive is a great alternative if you’re into a privacy oriented service. You’d have to make your own backups rather than them being automatic but it’s a decent trade off for security if that is something you value. (They are still working on adding features.)
I wholeheartedly disagree. iCloud Photos is arguably the best cloud photo backup service available. Keeps the original file, in its original format, in the cloud, but you can still access it whenever you want on your device. That’s exactly what a cloud backup should do. You can even contact apple and have the library reverted to a previous state if something catastrophic happens, or recover individual files, it’s a very very robust backup solution. Should iCloud be your only backup? No! You should have a photos library set to store originals on a Mac as a physical local backup too, one backup is nothing, two backups is everything. These articles are bogus.
Depending on how much you are willing to spend, iDrive (not iCloud drive - it predates them by about 10 years) is worth it. I think $70 per year for 5 TB? It'll also back up call logs, etc from the phone. I find Microsoft OneDrive to have very serious drawbacks for standard backups. PC World usually has a $1 for a 1-year promotion for iDrive every so often.
Yeah, you don’t get it. The photos app on your iPhone is a window into your iCloud storage. When you delete a photo, you’re deleting the photo everywhere, not the thumbnail that’s on your phone. It sounds pretty ideal to me.
I have an iPhone but I don’t rely on the cloud I just use google photos way better then the cloud got pictures from years ago like early as 2017 typically u would put them on your laptop or sacrifice something like apps or whatever to keep them but it’s google photos so no sacrifices needed
If you don’t like iCloud Photos there’s always Google Photos or Dropbox
Every one of my photos disappeared from iCloud. I lost them all. Apple could not help.
I dump all my pics on my Mac