The best services to store iPhone photos and videos in the cloud

I don't know about you, but I haven't used another camera other than my iPhone to take photos and record videos for a long time.

The immediacy that you always have at hand makes us take many more snapshots than when we used our digital or video camera. That's fine, but of course, the storage space on our iPhone is limited, and it's shared with many other things, so from time to time you have to clean it up and delete what occupies the most, which will always be our multimedia files.

The ideal solution is to use one of the cloud services that allow us to keep our memories safe, making regular backups and as easily as possible.

In this Post we are going to make a list of the most used cloud services.

Some give more storage space than others, some are free, others have a monthly fee... In short, what is there to choose from, so if you are thinking of taking all your photos and videos to the cloud, reading this article will be very useful for you to decide which one to work with.

The best cloud storage services for iPhone photos

1- iCloud Photo Library

iCloud-photo-library

This is Apple's solution, so it's only logical to say that it works the best of all.

Well, more than the one that works best, the one that will give us the least work, since it works in the shadows, you just have to activate it and that's it, every time you have new photos or videos, and you're connected to a WIFI network, your files they will begin to synchronize with the cloud, a wonder come on….

In addition, once the photos have been uploaded, the service takes care of converting your files to highly optimized versions with much less weight than the original, which is already in the cloud. In this way you can continue accessing your favorite photos quickly, but the impact on your iPhone's memory will be minimal.

If you want to edit a photo, all you have to do is download the original from iCloud in a few seconds and get to work. Everything you do will be automatically reflected in the rest of the devices that you have connected to the same iCloud account.

iCloud Photo Library pricing

iCloud Photo Library is a “Free” service. We put it in quotes because you really don't have to pay anything to start using it, not even downloading an application is integrated into iOS.

The downside is that Apple is the service that includes the least free storage space of those that are part of this list. You only have 5Gb. and believe me if I tell you that you are going to use them very quickly, they are not going to be used to store everything you do with your iPhone.

To solve this storage problem you will have to go through the box and contract one of the payment plans offered by Apple.

You will always be able to go up or down the plan, contracting it does not commit you to continue with it. For example, you can contract the 50 GB plan and download it to the free plan if you stop using it.

iCloud storage prices are as follows:

  • 50 GB per € 0,99 per month
  • 200 GB per € 2,99 per month
  • 1TB by € 9,99 per month

Now you only have to calculate how much your multimedia library occupies to contract the appropriate plan.

Google Photos

google-photos

I'll tell you a secret, this is the service I use to have a cloud backup of all the photos and videos I take with my iPhone, and I'll give you my reasons.

Google Photos has two different plans, one completely free and the other paid.

With the free service you can upload photos up to 16 Mp. and videos up to 1080p with no storage limits. You are reading well, there is no limit, you can upload whatever you want and always have it available from any device. As long as you have an internet connection, and a browser at hand, you can access all your multimedia content immediately.

The difference between the paid service and the free one is that in the former the photos and videos that you upload are exactly the same as the originals, there is no compression, you upload everything with the quality that you have taken. In the free service we have the limits that I mentioned above (16 Mp for photos and 1080p for videos), and they are also compressed so that they take up less space.

In any case, I assure you that, at least in the photos, it will be difficult for you to tell the difference between the original and the copy, the compression algorithm is fantastic. For the videos it is different, there you will notice it.

You have a article where we talk in depth about Google PhotosI recommend that you look at it so you can see how the service works.

Google Photos pricing.

As we already mentioned, you have the option of the free service, but if you work seriously with your photos and videos you will have to use the paid service.

If you want this service you will save your photos in Google Drive, these are the rates depending on the storage you need.

  • 15GB. Free
  • 100GB. 1,99 € / month
  • 1TB 9,99 € / month

If you like this service for your iPhone you can download its application from the widget below.

Flickr

flickr iphone 6

Flickr was one of the first cloud photo storage services to hit the market, and today it's owned by Yahoo.

They don't mess around here, Yahoo gives you a whopping 1TB. free to save your photos and videos, although it has some limitations:

  1. Each individual video cannot be larger than 1 Gb. (This is perhaps the most serious….)
  2.  The photos cannot be larger than 200 Mb. (Those of the iPhone 6 have an average weight of 2 Mb. Here we have plenty)
  3. Images cannot be 31,25 times wider than they are tall (Don't count, unless you take a lot of panoramic photos with your iPhone this limitation won't be a problem either)

If you do not incur one of these limitations, your photos and videos will be saved in their original format in the cloud, nothing compressed, everything as it was taken.

One great thing about Flickr is that it's integrated with the iPhone, so you'll be able to search for photos from within Spotlight.

You have 1TB. totally free for you alone, but if due to life circumstances you get to fill it you can go to the next level, 2 Tb. for $499 a year.

If this is your service you can download the Flickr App from the Widget below and start storing.

OneDrive

Onedrive

OneDrive is Microsoft's cloud service, by default it gives you 15 GB of free storage, and you can go up to 50 GB if you pay €2 per month.

At first it seems the least appetizing of those that go on this list, however it has an addition that can make it very interesting if you are a user of the Microsoft office suite. A subscription to Officie365 gives you the opportunity to enjoy no less than 1 Tb. of storage, in addition to the right to use Word, Excel, etc.

The price of this service is € 10 per month.

You'll be able to access your photos from any web browser or from the OneDrive app on your iPhone, and all your files are saved in the original format they were taken in, uncompressed.

To start with this service, you must download the OneDrive application for iPhone and sign up for one of its payment plans, if the 15Gb that you will have for free does not work for you.

my personal options

These are the best options for saving your multimedia files in the cloud, but each person is different, and depending on your personal needs, you can choose one or the other.

Personally, I use a combination that gives me security against any unforeseen event that may arise. Before telling you what I do, I must say that my complete multimedia library (I am only talking about personal photos and videos), exceeds 300 Gb. It is a considerable figure that would make me have to opt for any of the payment plans mentioned above in its version more expensive (€10 per month in any case).

The ideal service for a person like me, who has more apples at home on the back of their devices than in the supermarket greengrocer, would undoubtedly be the iCloud photo library, but I think I can use other services and use those €10 a month on more productive things.

My cloud service for backing up my photos and videos is Google Photos, and I have chosen that one for three reasons:

  1. The compression of the photos is terribly efficient, they are considerably reduced in weight, but I am not able to tell the difference between the original and the copy.
  2. You can upload your entire library to Google photos, even the one you've already had on your computer for years. You can discard a Uploader official Google and indicate the folders that you want to synchronize, in this way, if you add any file to these folders, it will be automatically uploaded to the cloud. Ideal if you use other cameras.
  3. I always carry my entire library of photos and videos on my iPhone, and I keep it very well organized, because the classification that Google Photos does of all the files I upload is really spectacular.

The only thing that the free Google Photos service lacks is in the videos, as I mentioned a little above in them, the compression and a lower quality than the original are noticeable.

Also as an alternative measure I keep a copy of all my files on my computer, in this way I make sure that, in case of misfortune, I will always have a copy of everything in one of the two places.

And what system do you use to save your photos and videos? Leave us a comment and enrich this article.


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