You have decided to dedicate a small part of your holidays to reorganizing and storing your photos , but unfortunately you have so many images and so much confusion in your smartphone’s memory that you don’t know where to start! I understand you, but now there are several tools that allow you to archive photos online – and often organize them automatically – in an extremely simple way: why not try using one?
How do you say? Would you like to do it but you don’t know how to proceed? Would you like to use an online photo upload tool but don’t want to spend any money? And where is the problem ?! In the course of this guide, I will explain how to do this.
If you want to start tidying up the memory of your smartphone you just have to take a few minutes of free time, get comfortable and carefully read the procedures indicated below. You will see: in a short time you will have learned how to archive digital photos and you will have solved the storage and organization problems of your shots (and your videos). Enjoy your reading and have fun!
Index
- How to archive digital photographs
- Google Photo
- Photo on iCloud
- Amazon Photos
- Synology Photos
- Other services for storing digital photos
How to archive digital photographs
You can’t wait to be able to archive all the photos you took during your last vacation, because they are really very beautiful and you want to avoid deleting them or losing them for some of your clumsy mistakes.
For this reason you can’t wait to find out how to archive digital photographs using one of the cloud services, and not only that, which I will tell you about in the next paragraphs.
Google Photo
The first service I want to tell you about is Google Photos and it is a photo and video cloud storage system offered by the Mountain View giant. This service is able to back up images and videos on smartphones and tablets in a completely automatic way.
To access them you will only need a Google account , through which you can access 15 GB of storage space for free (shared with other services such as Google Drive ) both to archive photos in Original quality and in Storage space saving (therefore with resolution maximum of 16 MP).
If you want to have more than the 15 GB offered for free, you should know that there are subscription plans that allow you to get more space on the cloud. As for the monthly billing, it starts from € 1.99 per month for 100 GB of space and reaches up to € 149.99 per month for 30 TB . If you choose annual billing, however, you go from 19.99 euros per year for 100 GB of space , up to 5 TB at the price of 249.99 euros per year . More info here .
Google Photos is available on Android , iPhone and iPad devices , while from PC and Mac it is accessible directly from the web browser and the Google Drive client .
If you work from your smartphone, once you have downloaded and installed the app (on Android it is often pre-installed), open it, log in to your Google account (if it is not already present on the device) and tap on the Activate backup button : choose the type of backup you want to use, that is Original quality or Storage space saving , and then press the Confirm button .
Once this is done, you will find yourself in the main screen which is a kind of gallery, showing all the photos present on the cloud. By default, photos are uploaded automatically as soon as the device is connected to a Wi-Fi network . If, however, you want to back up even when you use the data network, just tap on your avatar at the top right and from the menu that appears tap on the Photo Settings item .
Next, go to Backup and synchronization> Mobile data use : tap the Unlimited button and set the voice lever to ON Backup your videos using the data network . Remember, however, that backing up a lot of photos while connected to the data network can involve a huge consumption of the GB available with your tariff plan.
If, on the other hand, you want to access Google Photos via PC or Mac, all you have to do is open the browser and go to this web page : click on the Go to Google Photos button and log in to your Google account .
Once inside the main page of the service, click on the Upload button at the top and from the menu that appears click on the Computer item if you want to upload photos from your PC or Google Drive if you have already uploaded the photos to this cloud service. To enable the automatic backup of the photos on the computer, all you have to do is press on the item Automatically backup the photos on the computer and in the screen that opens click the Download button: in this way the Google Drive application will be downloaded , through which it will be possible to set the automatic backup of a PC folder. More info here.
For more information check out my tutorial on how Google Photos works .
Photo on iCloud
The second service that I definitely recommend for archiving photos is iCloud Photos , which is available for all Apple-branded devices, so iPhone , iPad and Mac , but also on Windows PC and via browser. Just like with Google Photos , even with iCloud Photos the backup takes place completely automatically, so you don’t have to perform it manually.
In order to use this service, you need to have an Apple ID . However, if you are using an Apple device you should already have it, as it is required for an Apple-branded device to function properly.
The service has a free plan , which provides the user with 5 GB of cloud space (shared with all the company’s services), which you can use to back up photos and videos. However, as you can well understand, this is a rather limited amount of space, so it is almost mandatory to switch to a paid subscription plan. It starts at 0.99 euros per month for 50 GB of space, then goes to 2.99 euros per month for 200 GB and reaches 9.99 euros per month for 2 TB of cloud space. More info here .
If you work via iPhone or iPad , to use iCloud Photos you need to open the Settings app , recognizable by the gear icon, and tap on your Apple account at the top. In the screen that opens, tap on the iCloud item and then on Photos : set the lever of the item Synchronize this iPhone to ON . Also, by default, the Optimize iPhone space option will be activated , which will upload the photos to iCloud and automatically remove them from the device, in order to free up space. If, on the other hand, you want to keep them also on the device, select the itemDownload and keep originals .
If you work via Mac , however, you must open the System Preferences / System Settings application and click on the Apple ID at the top: if you have not yet done so, log in using your credentials.
After logging in, click on the iCloud item and then set the lever of the Photos item to ON .
Once this is done, all you have to do is open the Photos app , usually located in the dock at the bottom (you can also search for it through Spotlight ), and click on the Start button on the screen that appears.
After opening the application, click on the Photo item in the top bar and then on Preferences / Settings from the menu that appears. Once in the application settings, click on the iCloud tab and then check the iCloud Photos and Optimize Mac Storage items if you want the photos to be automatically uploaded to iCloud and removed from the Mac, or Download originals on this Mac if you want to keep them on the Mac as well.
If you want to use iCloud Photos also from a Windows PC, just download the application from the Microsoft Store ( Windows 10 and Windows 11 ) or from the official Apple website (Windows 7 and Windows 8).
Once you have downloaded and installed the app , just open it, log in with your Apple ID and put a check mark on the item Photos . Next, click on the Options button next to the Photos item and set the check mark on the iCloud Photos item and click on the Finish button . In this way the contents in the PC library will be uploaded to iCloud.
Finally, if you want to use the service from unsupported devices, such as Android devices, Linux PCs or Chromebooks , just use the service via a web browser . More info here .
Finally, for more information check out my tutorial on how iCloud Photos works .
Amazon Photos
Another cloud storage service that you can certainly evaluate for storing your photos is Amazon Photos , whose operation is quite similar to that of Google Photos or iCloud Photos , in fact also in this case there is automatic backup, very useful to save digital photos .
To access the service you will only need an Amazon account , through which you can access 5 GB of storage space for both photos and videos for free. If, on the other hand, you are an Amazon Prime customer , you will be able to access unlimited photo storage and 5 GB of video storage.
Amazon Photos is available on Android , iPhone, and iPad devices , as well as PCs and Macs . In addition, you can also use it directly from the web browser .
If you work from your smartphone, once you have downloaded and installed the app , open it, log in to your Amazon account, if it is not already present on the device, or tap on the Continue button and then OK : tap on the Allow button from the pop- up. up that appears on the screen.
On the page that opens, decide how to back up your photos: if you want to perform automatic saving on Amazon Photos , set the relative lever to ON and do the same thing even if you want to backup using the mobile data of the SIM: a Once you have decided how to backup, tap on the Done button .
If you work through a Windows PC or Mac, on the other hand, after downloading and installing the application, open it and log in to your Amazon account. Once this is done you will find yourself in the main screen of the app. To back up the photos on your PC, simply drag them to the Drag and drop your photos section , or click the Browse item , select the photos or an entire folder and click the Open button .
If you want to activate automatic synchronization, click on the Settings button and from the menu that appears click on the Synchronization tab : click on the Activate synchronization button and then on Yes from the pop-up that appears. The application will restart.
After a few seconds the app will open again and a new screen will appear: select the PC folder you want to synchronize in the drop-down menu of the Local synchronization folder item and then click on the Start synchronization button . The photos in that folder will automatically be archived to Amazon Photos.
Synology Photos
You would like to store your digital photos using some alternative system to the various cloud services I mentioned earlier, because you want to prevent your personal photos from ending up on the “network”. Or, you are a professional who works in the photographic field and usually works on files of rather generous dimensions and perhaps in RAW format .
Given your needs, I can recommend the Synology Photos service , which is a web application that can be installed on the NAS servers of the homonymous company (Synology) that allows you to store and catalog digital photos without particular problems, locally, avoiding the various cloud services. If you don’t know what a NAS is or want to figure out which one to buy, take a look at my buying guide .
The strength of this service is the possibility of being able to access it also using the app of the same name available for download for Android and iPhone / iPad devices , as well as via the web browser . In addition, through the app, you can also enable backup of all photos taken with the smartphone.
Clearly, as I told you earlier, Synology Photos is only compatible with Synology NAS, but you can achieve something similar with other NAS models as well. Do a Google search to find out more.
Other services for storing digital photos
None of the services I told you about previously convinced you fully, so you would like to understand what to use to store digital photos . Don’t worry, in this case below I will show you other services for storing digital photos that might be right for you.
- Dropbox( Android / iOS / iPadOS / Windows / macOS / Web ) – file hosting service that offers several features for file storage, including automatic background file synchronization, which allows you to be able to store files, including including photos, without having to do it manually. The service offers 2GB of storage for free, but you can get more through the different subscription plans More info here .
- MEGA( Android / iOS / iPadOS / Windows / macOS / Linux / Web ) – cloud storage service that allows you to easily store photos, as well as other types of data. Through the mobile app it is also possible to enable automatic backup. The service offers 20GB of storage for free , but you can get more through the different subscription plans More info here .
- Box( Android / iOS / iPadOS / Windows / macOS / Web ) – cloud storage service through which you can store any type of file, including photos, with the guarantee of data protection with end-to-end encryption . The service offers 10 GB of online space for free, but you can get more by choosing one of the different subscription plans available, both for individuals and for companies .
