In this week’s episode, we have a viewer question.
Maggie asks: How do I back up the photos on my iPhone?
If you would like your question answered email ask@techdoctor.com.au or leave a comment below.
Thanks for asking Maggie! Like many IT questions there are several possible answers, so I’ll give you a couple and let you choose the one that works for you.
If you have a computer, you can simply plug your iPhone into a free USB
port on the computer using the same cable you use to charge it. In Windows 10, a window will pop up showing the internal storage of your phone. Inside
that is a DCIM folder and inside that will be one or more folders. My iPhone
has 4: 100 Apple has old photos and movies in it, 101 Apple has newer photos and movies in it 100Cloud has older photos and movies saved in iCloud in it and 101Cloud has newer photos and movies saved to iCloud in it.
port on the computer using the same cable you use to charge it. In Windows 10, a window will pop up showing the internal storage of your phone. Inside
that is a DCIM folder and inside that will be one or more folders. My iPhone
has 4: 100 Apple has old photos and movies in it, 101 Apple has newer photos and movies in it 100Cloud has older photos and movies saved in iCloud in it and 101Cloud has newer photos and movies saved to iCloud in it.
All you need to do is copy these folders to the Pictures folder on your computer and you have a backup. This will take some time. If you’re intending to delete the files from your phone, then this becomes the only copy of your pictures, so you really need to have a backup, but we’ll cover that in a later episode.
Option 2 is Apple’s own iCloud. Apple gives you 5Gb data storage for free but I know because you’re asking that you likely have way more than 5Gb of
photos. If you’re happy to part with some of your hard-earned money you can simply pay Apple AU$1.49 per month to upgrade that to 50Gb and let Apple backup all your photos. The problem is that you have to pay that AU$1.50 every month that’s $120 over the next ten years. Maybe it’s worth
it, maybe it’s not. It’s entirely up to you.
photos. If you’re happy to part with some of your hard-earned money you can simply pay Apple AU$1.49 per month to upgrade that to 50Gb and let Apple backup all your photos. The problem is that you have to pay that AU$1.50 every month that’s $120 over the next ten years. Maybe it’s worth
it, maybe it’s not. It’s entirely up to you.
There’s also a 200Gb plan for AU$4.49 per month and a 2 terabyte plan for AU$14.99 per month, but you are only likely to need them if you take a lot of video and never delete anything or you’re backing up a computer as well.
Option 3 is a Google option. Google has an App for the iPhone called Photos that allow you to back up your iPhone photos to Google.
All you need to do is download the app, log in to your Google account (see the Google account episode) and it will begin to backup your photos and videos. You can either choose to backup full versions of your photos that will count against the 15Gb of storage you usually get with a Google account or you can select high quality mode and Google will back them all up for you for free.
These photos are compressed to 16 megapixels each but the iPhone doesn’t
take photos that big so there is no loss. The other great feature of Google photos is that you can log into photos.google.com on any computer and see your photos there, organise them, play with them and even share them with your friends.
take photos that big so there is no loss. The other great feature of Google photos is that you can log into photos.google.com on any computer and see your photos there, organise them, play with them and even share them with your friends.
There are a few ideas for you Maggie. 🙂
If it helps, I personally do both number 1 and number 3 and mostly I do number 1 because I’m copying the recording of this video from my iPhone off to edit it.
I hope that was really helpful for you.
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