If you have an iPhone, especially the newest one, you’ll probably use it to take a lot of photos and videos. Cameras on iPhones are special, and they’re more convenient to pull out than a giant SLR! Well, at least it’s for me.
And if you’ve read anything online, you’ve probably heard about Wired writer Mat Honanwho was hacked and his iPhone, iPad and MacBook Pro completely wiped out by the hacker and lost all his precious photos and videos of his daughter because he didn’t back it up.
I quickly realized after reading that article that if someone erased my iPhone, iPad and MacBook Pro, I would lose all very important data. I regularly back up with Time Machine and I have iCloud Backup turned on on my iPhone and iPad, but since my data is fragmented all over the place, I will still lose a lot of things.
This helps me go through all the photos and videos and settings on my device and ensures that all current content is backed up externally and any new videos and photos taken on my iPhone will be saved. automatic backup. In this article, I will walk you through what I did to properly backup all my iPhone/iPad/Macbook data including photos and videos.
Table of Contents
Method 1 – iTunes/iCloud
The easiest way to back everything up is to use iCloud or iTunes. Open iTunes, connect your device and then right click on it and select Backup:
This will manually back up your device to iTunes on your local computer. Note that if you have iCloud backup turned on, you can still back up your device locally using this method. I highly recommend doing a backup in iTunes because I tried to restore an iCloud backup before and it didn’t work. iCloud is great, but it’s the cloud, and the cloud can be tricky at times.
Also, make sure to encrypt the backup when you do a local backup as that will allow other safe data to be backed up as well.
To turn on iCloud backup, go to Setting on your device, tap your name, then tap icloud and then tap iCloud Backup towards the bottom.
Turn it on and then let the device back up on its own, or you can manually back up to iCloud if you don’t want to wait. Make sure your device is connected to power and WiFi before starting the backup.
The only thing about backing up your device this way is that if you delete a video, for example, and want to restore it, you must restore the device completely. Now, it’s great if your device is completely erased, then you can do a full restore from backup and you’ll have all your photos and videos plus everything else.
However, the best option is to enable iCloud Photo Library (Method 2 below), which will be much more convenient for managing your photos and videos. Note that you should also enable iCloud Backup.
Method 2 – iCloud Photo Library
If you only take photos and videos from your Apple devices, then you should use iCloud Photo Library. By default, Apple is extremely stingy and only gives you 5GB of iCloud storage for free. This is not nearly enough if you use your iPhone as the main camera.
Fortunately, iCloud isn’t too expensive. For $1 a month you get 50 GB of storage and for $3 a month you get 200 GB of storage. Then it just goes up to 2 TB for $10 a month which is a huge amount of capacity.
To turn on iCloud Photo Library, go to settings, tap your name, tap icloud and then tap Picture.
Go ahead and turn it on make sure to check Optimize iPhone memory unless you have plenty of space on your device to store all that media.
Now, any device signed in with your iCloud ID will be able to view all videos and images. This is great if you have a Mac, where you can also use the Photos app in conjunction with iCloud Photo Library.
Method 3 – Photos App
As mentioned, the Photos app is a great tool for managing your library if you already own a Mac. The Photos app is useful for people who still want to take higher-quality photos and videos with their dedicated camera, but also want to be able to see all of it in their iCloud Photo Library.
You can set it up so that whenever you connect your device to your Mac, it automatically imports all the photos and videos. Once imported, you can choose to keep them on your device or delete them. If iCloud Photo Library is turned on, all imported media will be uploaded and displayed on all your devices.
To turn on iCloud Photo Library on your Mac, click Picture in the menu bar and then click Interests.
You have the same options on your Mac as on your iPhone: Download the original or Optimize Mac memory. If you have a large hard drive and can store your entire iCloud Photo Library on your local hard drive, I recommend choosing Download the original to this Mac. In the event of a serious problem with iCloud, you’ll have a full backup of everything on your local device.
The only thing I don’t like about the Photos app is that everything is stored in Apple’s proprietary format and cannot be accessed by any other apps. I used to love using Google Picasa, but that hasn’t been updated in years.
Method 4 – Google Photos / Cloud Storage
The last method and the one I use the most is backing up to Google Photos. You can download the Google Photos app for iPhone and iPad and automatically upload your photos and videos. I personally use both Google Photos and iCloud to make two copies of all my photos and videos. It seems like overkill, but I’m just being overly paranoid.
On Google Photos, tap the three horizontal lines, then tap the gear icon. Knock on Backup & Sync and turn it on. It will then start syncing everything in your iCloud Photo Library with Google Photos. If you already have a large amount of media in your photo library, Google Photos will sync the entire library.
The big problem with this is that it will force your device to re-download all the content from iCloud to be able to upload it to Google Photos. This means your device will run out of space for a while until the upload is complete.
It is certainly inconvenient, especially the first time, but it has proved very useful to me many times over. I took the videos and the same day they were deleted by my iPhone loving daughter! That’s why I make sure it’s backed up in multiple locations just in case.
The other main reason I back up to Google Photos is that it links to Google Drive. With Google Drive, you can sync your entire photo library with another computer or even a network device like a NAS. iCloud also has a Windows Programs to sync everything with the PC, but I’m not a fan of how it works.
Besides Google Photos, you can really use any cloud service you want. Dropbox, OneDrive, and other cloud services all work the same way, so if you’re already attached to one, keep using it. What method do you use to backup photos and videos on your iPhone/iPad? Let us know in the comments section. Interesting!
