If you took a bunch of photographs and movies throughout the holidays, your cellphone might be operating low on storage. Now what? You is perhaps tempted to only add all of your information to the cloud — however if you happen to try this, you will find yourself paying a fairly penny. Zooey Liao/CNETCloud storage did not was costly. When Google Photos debuted in 2015, it promised free, limitless storage. I fortunately uploaded all my photographs and movies, understanding they had been protected within the cloud and accessible from wherever.
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Then, in 2021, Google pulled the rug out from underneath us. The free trip was over. All these 1000’s of photographs had been protected, however each new image began chipping away at that measly 15GB of free storage. Suddenly, my photograph behavior got here with a price ticket, forcing me to pay for a Google One subscription if I needed to maintain importing.All these photographs and movies had been taking over numerous house, as a result of what’s saved within the cloud does not really vanish into the sky. Those information 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 yr, which turns into $1,200 after 10 years. And Google One wasn’t a subscription that I may simply cancel, like Netflix or Spotify. If I finished paying, I might now not be capable to add new photographs and movies, and I might doubtlessly lose entry to all my information after two years.How may I again up all my recollections with out the cloud? Over the years, I developed a system for managing my information and protecting copies saved on an exterior laborious drive. While it takes a little bit extra work to switch all the pieces 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 evaluations. Add us as a most well-liked Google supply on Chrome.Why I exploit an exterior laborious drive for storing photographs and moviesIf you do not wish to pay for cloud storage, chances are you’ll be tempted to get a cellphone with the next storage capability. After Google Photos stopped letting me add information without spending a dime, my first thought was that I’d moderately pay extra up-front for a tool with a terabyte of storage as a substitute of paying indefinitely for a Google One subscription. But even essentially the most future-proofed 1TB cellphone will ultimately must be changed. And if I wish to carry over all my previous information, my subsequent cellphone might want to have at the least as a lot storage as my present one, plus extra capability for my future photographs and movies.To complicate this challenge, picture file sizes proceed to develop. As cellphone cameras enhance, the footage they seize leads to higher-megapixel information. My iPhone estimates that every 12-megapixel picture is roughly 2MB and every 24-megapixel picture is 3MB. Video takes up much more house: a minute of 4K footage can simply exceed 1GB. At these charges, even a cellphone with 256GB of storage (the brand new minimal for the iPhone 17 sequence) can refill 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 fees $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 information throughout a number of units. You can even maintain utilizing it lengthy after you’ve got upgraded to a brand new cellphone. 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 all the pieces to the cloud. You want to attend in your information to switch out of your gadget to the drive, after which kind all the pieces into folders. Then, after the file switch is full, you need to delete these information out of your cellphone or pc. Fortunately, as soon as you’ve got discovered the method and completed it a couple of instances, it turns into fairly simple. Here’s how I do it.My course of for backing up photographsWhen I’m attributable to again up my photographs and movies (or my cellphone is operating low on storage), I wish 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 duplicate of all my cellphone’s photographs 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 information have been transferred, I plug my exterior drive into my pc and choose all of the photographs I wish to again up. The Photos app helpfully kinds all the pieces by add date. I can choose all the pictures from the latest batch by clicking on the primary photograph, holding the Shift key, after which clicking on the final photograph. I then drag and drop them into the exterior drive. If I’ve numerous photographs (over 500), I have a tendency to separate up this step and choose 200 to 300 at a time, or there may be some interruptions to the switch course of. Jeffrey Hazelwood/CNETI attempt to again up my photographs at the least as soon as a month, or after a special day, similar 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 top of 1 interval and the start of one other. I used to battle with organizing the information on my exterior drive. However, I now merely create a folder for every batch of uploaded photographs and movies. I’ll label these folders both by the date (e.g. July 2025), or the event (Trip to London, Summer 2024).You could discover {that a} related system works for you. Perhaps you will go for roughly frequent backups. Either means, I extremely advocate this remaining step: Make a backup of the backup on a separate exterior drive. That means, if one in all your drives fails, you will nonetheless have the opposite.I’m extra intentional in regards to the photographs I seizeOne challenge with protecting all my information 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 photographs I want on my Instagram web page or in my e mail inbox. I do go away sure photographs and movies on my cellphone indefinitely, however solely ones that I have to refer again to usually (a screenshot of my insurance coverage data, for instance). I additionally maintain some photographs that I get pleasure from seeing now and again: a picture from a household reunion, a day trip with associates. It’s a curated assortment, very similar to the one or two photographs that folks used to maintain of their wallets. Jason Chun/CNETYes, it may be a problem to handle all these information on an exterior drive however it’s properly value 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 possibility, I might really feel as if another person owned my information. What if Google Photos makes one other change to its storage coverage or raises costs once more? I might don’t have any selection however to go together with it. My recollections could be on the mercy of an organization. And what if Google shuts down sometime? Indeed, it is one of many largest firms on this planet at current. But that was additionally true of Kodak, not too way back.There’s yet another surprising profit: By being answerable for creating these guide 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 bear in mind it.
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