It prices nothing to take an image along with your telephone. But between holidays, household gatherings and on a regular basis moments, you possibly can simply find yourself with hundreds of images. If you retailer all these images within the cloud, you are in all probability paying a fairly penny.Cloud storage did not was costly. When Google Photos debuted in 2015, it promised free, limitless storage. I fortunately uploaded all my images and movies, figuring out they have been protected within the cloud and accessible from anyplace. Then, in 2021, Google pulled the rug out from underneath us. The free experience was over. All these hundreds of images have been protected, however each new image began chipping away at that measly 15GB of free storage. Suddenly, my picture behavior got here with a price ticket, forcing me to pay for a Google One subscription if I needed to maintain importing. All these images and movies have been taking on a variety of area, as a result of what’s saved within the cloud does not really vanish into the sky. Those recordsdata exist on bodily servers right here on Earth. Essentially, they’re saved on another person’s pc.And now I used to be being charged to make use of that space for storing. I’ve at all times disliked the thought of paying for month-to-month subscriptions: $10 a month turns into $120 a 12 months, which turns into $1,200 after 10 years. And Google One wasn’t a subscription that I might simply cancel like Netflix or Spotify. If I finished paying, I might now not have the ability to add new images and movies, and I might doubtlessly lose entry to all my recordsdata after two years.How might I again up all my recollections with out the cloud? Over the years, I developed a system for managing my recordsdata and holding copies saved on an exterior onerous drive. While it takes just a little extra work to switch every part manually, it is a greater long-term answer for me, and it does not depend on paying for a subscription service.Don’t miss any of CNET’s unbiased tech content material and lab-based critiques. Add us as a most popular Google supply on Chrome.Why I take advantage of an exterior onerous drive for storing images and moviesIf you do not wish to pay for cloud storage, it’s possible you’ll be tempted to get a telephone with the next storage capability. After Google Photos stopped letting me add recordsdata free of charge, my first thought was that I’d moderately pay extra up-front for a tool with a terabyte of storage as an alternative of paying indefinitely for a Google One subscription. But even probably the most future-proofed 1TB telephone will finally should be changed. And if I wish to carry over all my previous recordsdata, my subsequent telephone might want to have a minimum of as a lot storage as my present one, plus extra capability for my future images and movies.To complicate this situation, picture file sizes proceed to develop. As telephone cameras enhance, the footage they seize ends in higher-megapixel recordsdata. My iPhone estimates that every 12-megapixel picture is roughly 2MB and every 24-megapixel picture is 3MB. Video takes up much more area: a minute of 4K footage can simply exceed 1GB. At these charges, even a telephone with 256GB of storage (the brand new minimal for the iPhone 17 collection) can replenish quick.Digital storage on an exterior drive does not need to be costly. You can simply get a 1TB solid-state drive for lower than $100. (For context, Apple prices $1,399 for the 1TB iPhone Air, a $400 premium over the $999 256GB mannequin.) Western DigitalThe greatest a part of utilizing an exterior drive is that you could save recordsdata throughout a number of gadgets. You may hold utilizing it lengthy after you’ve got upgraded to a brand new telephone. Generally, HDDs final three to 5 years, whereas SSDs final a minimal of 5 years. Using an exterior drive requires extra effort than backing up every part to the cloud. You want to attend on your recordsdata to switch out of your system to the drive, after which type every part into folders. Then, after the file switch is full, you need to delete these recordsdata out of your telephone or pc. Fortunately, as soon as you’ve got found out the method and carried out it a couple of instances, it turns into fairly simple. Here’s how I do it.My course of for backing up imagesWhen I’m resulting from again up my images and movies (or my telephone is working low on storage), I prefer to make two copies of every file: one for my laptop computer, and one for my exterior SSD.My MacEbook runs fewer apps and has extra storage than my iPhone, so it receives a replica of all my telephone’s images and movies. The Photos app on my Mac additionally has a useful “Delete items after upload” checkbox, which I like to recommend choosing.Once all of the recordsdata have been transferred, I plug my exterior drive into my pc and choose all of the images I wish to again up. The Photos app helpfully types every part by add date. I can choose all the pictures from the most recent batch by clicking on the primary picture, holding the Shift key, after which clicking on the final picture. I then drag and drop them into the exterior drive. If I’ve a variety of images (over 500), I have a tendency to separate up this step and choose 200 to 300 at a time, or there might be some interruptions to the switch course of. Jeffrey Hazelwood/CNETI attempt to again up my images a minimum of as soon as a month, or after an important day, akin to a trip. Sometimes, to be on the protected aspect, I’ll additionally make a backup earlier than a significant software program replace (like iOS 26). The course of has develop into a means for me to mark the tip of 1 interval and the start of one other. I used to wrestle with organizing the recordsdata on my exterior drive. However, I now merely create a folder for every batch of uploaded images and movies. I’ll label these folders both by the date (e.g. July 2025), or the event (Trip to London, Summer 2024).You might discover {that a} related system works for you. Perhaps you may go for roughly frequent backups. Either means, I extremely suggest this ultimate step: Make a backup of the backup on a separate exterior drive. That means, if one in every of your drives fails, you may nonetheless have the opposite.I’m extra intentional concerning the photographs I seizeOne situation with holding all my recordsdata on exterior drives is that I do not at all times have entry to them. But I believe that is an affordable trade-off. I need not carry each single picture I’ve ever captured in my pocket. I can often discover the images I would like on my Instagram web page or in my electronic mail inbox. I do depart sure images and movies on my telephone indefinitely, however solely ones that I have to refer again to typically (a screenshot of my insurance coverage data, for instance). I additionally hold some images that I take pleasure in seeing once in a while: a picture from a household reunion, a day trip with mates. It’s a curated assortment, very like the one or two photographs that individuals used to maintain of their wallets. Jason Chun/CNETYes, it may be a trouble to handle all these recordsdata on an exterior drive but it surely’s effectively price the additional effort. Not solely do I spend much less cash in the long term, however I additionally really feel reassured: My recollections are saved on a bodily object that I personal, moderately than being dumped onto another person’s pc.Even if I did pay for Google One or one other cloud storage choice, I might really feel as if another person owned my recordsdata. What if Google Photos makes one other change to its storage coverage or raises costs once more? I might don’t have any alternative however to associate with it. My recollections could be on the mercy of a company. And what if Google shuts down sometime? Indeed, it is one of many largest firms on the planet at current. But that was additionally true of Kodak, not too way back.There’s yet one more sudden profit: By being answerable for creating these handbook backups, I’ve develop into extra intentional about capturing photographs within the first place. I’ve realized that I haven’t got to take an image of each single factor I see. Most of the time, I can simply keep in mind it.
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