Every day we take a large number of photos and record videos that are stored in the Photos app on our iPhone. A content that, for the most part, usually has great value and that, understandably, we will want to keep safe against the possibility that something might disappear . Let’s see how to get it.
iCloud, the easiest way to make a backup of our photos
With a lot of difference compared to other alternatives, the easiest way to protect the content of the Photos app on our iPhone or iPad is to use iCloud. All we need is to have enough space in the account, because the system takes care of everything .
After activating Photos in iCloud, all existing photos or videos and those that we are going to take will be protected in the Apple cloud. In addition to this, they will be synchronized between all our devices , such as the iPad or the Mac. If we accidentally delete any content, we have a whole month to recover them from the Photos app itself. If, hopefully not, something happened to the iPhone, since all the content is in the cloud we just have to discard it again.
Turning on iCloud Photo Library is as simple as following these steps:
- We open the Settingsapp on our iPhone or iPad.
- We go to Photos.
- We turn on iCloudPhotos .
Our Mac as a backup for our photos
In addition to iCloud, we can protect the photos from our iPhone on our Mac. If we want to do it that way, we have two options. The first one is to use the Photos app. Instead of turning on iCloud Photos we can connect our iPhone to Mac to import them manually . It’s as simple as plugging in both devices, opening the Photos app on our Mac, selecting iPhone from [Name] in the sidebar and tapping Import All New or selecting the images we want and tapping Import Selected .
Another option when using the Mac to keep our iPhone photos safe is to send them through AirDrop . It’s as simple as selecting the ones you want on your iPhone, tapping the Share button (square with an up arrow), and then tapping AirDrop. We choose our Mac and the transfer will start instantly. From the Mac we simply choose that the content be saved in the Downloads folder and later, we move it where we need it, including possible external storage.
Keep in mind that this method may slightly modify the images’ metadata . Information such as the date and time of the shot, as well as the location, may not be saved with the photo, which can throw our photo library off depending on how we later store the photos. In this case it may be a better idea to download iCloud photos to Mac .
Our photos in third-party cloud services
If the options that we have just exposed do not convince us or adjust to our needs, we can think about resorting to third-party cloud storage services . There are several options, such as DropBox, OneDrive, Flickr or Google Photos. Services that we will access from the service app, which we can download from the App Store.
These alternatives are not as respectful of our privacy as iCloud, which encrypts the content so that only we can see it, but, at some point, they can be a solution to consider.
How to backup Mac the easy way
A solution that will guarantee that, if we need a backup, we will have our entire photo library protected to be able to recover all or part of its content easily and quickly. A good idea to ensure that all our photos and videos are safe.
