How To Back Up Your Photos
To many people, photos are precious memories captured to make a moment easy to relive. One look and they’re on a journey down memory lane. To others, it’s a simple way to store information. And most times, it can mean both of these things to people. Well, whatever the images mean to you, they’re certainly important and so, it’ll be wise to keep them in a safe place. So in this article, we’re going to show you how to back up your photos.
There are primarily two ways to back up your photos: cloud backup and local backup.
Cloud Backup
This involves backing up your photos to a cloud storage service. In other words, the photos are not backed up on your device but rather on a server owned by whichever backup service you choose to trust with your photos.
Best Cloud Storage For Photos
Google Photos
If you’re using an Android phone, you probably already have the Google Photos app installed.
Chances are you’ve already entrusted your data to Google, so you’d feel more comfortable, or it’ll be easier to back up your photos using their service. Google Photos offers 15 GB of free cloud storage space for your photos; if that’s not enough for you, you can buy more cloud storage space. The plans cost RS 130 per month for 100 GB, RS 210 per month for 200 GB, and RS 650 per month for 2 TB of cloud storage.
If you decide to go with Google Photos, you’d be able to easily access your photos through the Google Photos app, and you’d get benefits from the Photos app like face recognition and organization, memories creation, etc
OneDrive
Microsoft OneDrive is another great cloud storage service to back up your photos to. If you’re familiar with Windows 10 and 11, then it’ll be relatively easy for you to figure out your way through this app. When it comes to security, OneDrive offers features like two-factor authentication to prevent unauthorized access. Onedrive only offers a small 5GB of free cloud storage, and as for the paid plans, they cost RS 6,199 per year for 6TB (1 TB split between 6 people), RS 4,899 per year for 1TB, and RS 1499 per year for 100GB.
With the 6TB and 1TB OneDrive cloud storage plans, you get access to Microsoft 365 Family and Microsoft 365 Personal. So you get Office apps along with cloud storage space. Also, OneDrive isn’t just a photo backup service, so you won’t get as many image-focused features as you would on Google Photos. But that apparent disadvantage also gives OneDrive an advantage. It supports way more file formats than competitors.
iCloud
iCloud is the perfect cloud storage option if you've given yourself up to Apple Ecosystem. Everyone gets free 5GB of Cloud storage, and you can access your stored files on most if not any Apple platform you're signed into. And you can also easily share your cloud-stored pictures with the people close to you.
For more storage space on iCloud, you'll have to upgrade to iCloud+ which costs Rs 75 for 50GB, Rs 219 for 200GB, and Rs 749 for 2TB. The only issue you might come across with iCloud is when you're trying to access your Cloud storage from a non-Apple device.
Last but not least
Amazon Photos
Online store giant Amazon also offers cloud storage services called Amazon Photos. An added benefit of Amazon Cloud storage services is when you subscribe to Amazon Prime you get free unlimited photo Cloud storage and 5 GB video Cloud storage. Paid storage plans come in at $1.99 / month or $19.99 / year for 100 GB, $6.99 / month or $59.99 / year for 1 TB, $11.99 / month or $119.98 / year for 2 TB, etc. Amazon photos offer storage plans all the way up to 30 TB. You can check them all out here.
Local Backup
Don't you trust these big corporations with your sensitive photos? Or do you feel more comfortable keeping your photos off the net entirely? Then local backup storage is the solution you need. Basically, this means backing up your photos locally on a physical storage device like a memory card or hard drive. So to access your photos, all you’d need to do is plug in the external hard drive to your computer.
For local backups, it’s best to avoid flash drives, as they don’t last very long. Also, back up your photos to at least three different external hard drives. So if one external hard drive gets lost or malfunctions, you'll have a backup for your backup.
You should keep in mind that quality external hard drives can be expensive.
Here’s a list of the best external storage devices for your photos.
Mix It Up
Another way you can back up your precious photos is by storing them on both local and cloud storage. You could use your local storage as your main backup and cloud storage as a backup, or vice versa.
