Your phone probably contains thousands of photos—family moments, holidays, grandchildren growing up—that exist nowhere else. If your phone is lost, stolen, or breaks, those photos could be gone forever unless they’re backed up somewhere safe.
The good news is that backing up is straightforward once you understand your options. Here are the three main ways to do it, explained simply.
Option 1: iCloud (Apple’s built-in cloud backup)
iCloud is Apple’s own backup service and the most seamless option for iPhone users. When it’s set up correctly, your photos are automatically copied to Apple’s servers whenever your phone is on WiFi and charging—so you never have to think about it.
How to check if it’s turned on:
Go to Settings → tap your name at the top → iCloud → Photos. Make sure Sync this iPhone (or “iCloud Photos” on older iOS versions) is turned on.
Storage: Apple gives you 5GB of free iCloud storage, which fills up quickly if you have a lot of photos. You can buy more—50GB costs about 99p per month, 200GB costs £2.99 per month. For most people, 50GB is enough.
The catch: If you stop paying or run out of storage, new photos won’t sync. It’s worth occasionally checking that your photos are actually backing up—go to Settings → [your name] → iCloud → Manage Account Storage to see how much space you’re using.
Option 2: Google Photos
Google Photos is a free alternative that works on both iPhone and Android. It stores your photos in Google’s cloud and lets you access them from any device.
The free tier with Google accounts now has a 15GB limit shared across Google Drive, Gmail, and Google Photos. For most people this is enough to start, and additional storage (100GB) costs about £1.99 per month.
To set it up: Download the Google Photos app from the App Store, sign in with a Google account (or create one), and turn on Backup in the app’s settings.
One advantage of Google Photos is that it works well across both iPhone and Android—so if you ever switch phones, your photos come with you regardless of brand.
Option 3: External hard drive (physical backup)
For people who prefer not to rely on cloud services, backing up to a physical external hard drive is a solid and one-off option.
A portable external hard drive costs £40–£80 and can store thousands of photos. You connect it to a laptop and copy the photos across from your phone. There are no ongoing fees.
The downside is that this isn’t automatic—you have to remember to do it regularly. It’s also worth keeping the drive somewhere separate from your phone (not in the same bag), so that if one is lost or stolen, the other is still safe.
What I recommend
For most people, the best approach is iCloud or Google Photos for automatic ongoing backup, plus occasional copies to an external drive for extra peace of mind. That way your photos exist in at least two places at all times.
The most important thing is that something is in place before a problem occurs. I’ve had calls from people whose phones have been dropped or stolen and who’ve lost years of photos that were never backed up—it’s genuinely heartbreaking.
If you’d like help setting up photo backup on your iPhone—or if you want to check that what you already have in place is actually working—I visit homes across Falkirk and Central Scotland.
Find out more about photo backup help, or call 07944 156 453. No fix, no fee, 7 days a week.
Falkirk Tech Help—friendly in-home tech support across Falkirk and Central Scotland.