Best Online Photo Storage for iPhone 6s And Beyond

[MichaelMidnight]

Now that the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus are out, and now that we have 12mp pictures, 4k 30fps video, and Live Photos, we're in an age of multiple large files for both video and pictures. BUT WHERE DO YOU STORE THEM ONLINE. I'm not going to beat around the bush and I'll just ignore multi-place back-up practices like external hard drive and online specific file lockers, what I'm wondering is: what's the best service (for now) to host and store your photos and videos from your phones?

There's iCloud Drive and iCloud Photo Library, that while they may not offer the most GB storage space per buck, they do offer native storage for any new photo and video files like Live Photos.

Microsoft's OneDrive is aiming to be the place to store any and all files and has many incentives to rack up free space.

Amazon Cloud Drive has $60 unlimited everything a year AND being an Amazon Prime user ($99 a year) nets you Unlimited Photo storage albeit at the cost of a some simple UI interface.

There's Box and Dropbox.

And my personal favorite, Google Photos, with their Assistant Collections that makes gifs, stories, and movies from your pictures and video files.

 

[stephen1108]

My favorite is Flickr, 1 TB of free space for full sized pics and videos.

Google would be a good contender if it didn't mirror your camera roll. That's the sole reason why I don't like iCloud Photo Library. If I want to back up my pictures online, I want to be able to delete local copies and not have that deletion mirrored in the cloud.

 

[MichaelMidnight]

Yeah, that's my biggest gripe about iCloud Photo Library and Apple's version of "the cloud". For them, until recently with iCloud Drive, it appeared that they only want to use the Cloud as a delivery system between moving files between devices instead of as a digital hard drive. And that's what I'm sort of looking for, a Cloud system that acts as both a storage locker and photo gallery, so I can delete things off my phone.

 

[stephen1108]

Yeah, that's my biggest gripe about iCloud Photo Library and Apple's version of "the cloud". For them, until recently with iCloud Drive, it appeared that they only want to use the Cloud as a delivery system between moving files between devices instead of as a digital hard drive. And that's what I'm sort of looking for, a Cloud system that acts as both a storage locker and photo gallery, so I can delete things off my phone.

I seriously recommend Flickr and the FlickStackr app: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/flickstackr-for-flickr/id364895358?mt=8

FlickStackr is what I use for ALL my Flickr uploads and back-ups. It's also pretty awesome for managing your library and finding pics.

Flickr is totally independent of what I do in my Camera Roll after they're uploaded to Flickr, and I LOVE that.

 

[MICHAELSD]

Are there any services that will allow you to upload uncompressed, raw photos and videos (up to 4K quality)? (Raw photo files so that live photos remain intact.)

Besides iCloud.

 

[MichaelMidnight]

Ugh... while I love how Flickr gives you 1TB for free, I hate the look of the web UI :/

 

[coney718]

My favorite is Google photos. Quick, free and simple. I have about 1000 photos and videos backed up there already. I love how they make gifs and stories from your photos.

 

[MichaelMidnight]

My favorite is Google photos. Quick, free and simple. I have about 1000 photos and videos backed up there already. I love how they make gifs and stories from your photos.

Yeah that's why I have them as my favorite, especially with the iPhone 6. Didn't need to downsize my pictures. But now with the larger 12mp camera, I don't want to downsize 'em so I'm starting to look at places all over but Google Photos has a special place in my picture taking heart!

 

[SoSquidTaste]

I also quite like Google Photos for the photo archives-style cloud storage rather than camera roll mirror as discussed above.

Plus, if like me your university is on Google Apps for Education and they have rolled it out for your current or alumni address, you by default have unlimited storage (well, technically it always says 2 petabytes remaining ). I'm backing up all of my photos in Original quality without any limits which is reaaaaally nice.

 

[MichaelMidnight]

I also quite like Google Photos for the photo archives-style cloud storage rather than camera roll mirror as discussed above.

Plus, if like me your university is on Google Apps for Education and they have rolled it out for your current or alumni address, you by default have unlimited storage (well, technically it always says 2 petabytes remaining ). I'm backing up all of my photos in Original quality without any limits which is reaaaaally nice.

OH WOW! That's really great. In that case yeah, Google Photos all the way. Unfortunately I don't have that, and I'm going to have to buy some more storage. I just don't know where yet!

 

[bigcstyle4]

I've been using Google Photos since it launched and have thousands of photos backed up there. Hopefully it will be compatible with Live Photos at some point but I'm not holding my breath.

 

[TG1]

I've been using Google Photos since it launched and have thousands of photos backed up there. Hopefully it will be compatible with Live Photos at some point but I'm not holding my breath.

Yep. The 6S/6S Plus crowd will be very interested in seeing which non-Apple service will support cloud backup of Live Photos.

 

[MichaelMidnight]

I mean back at the September event, they named dropped Facebook. So I expect Instagram ain't too far behind.

 

[Stevessvt]

Google photos all the way. Absolutely free unlimited storage for all your photos up to 16MP pics. Or you can use what ever your storage allotment is and store how ever big your pics/videos are.
You cant beat unlimited and free.

 

[MICHAELSD]

Google photos all the way. Absolutely free unlimited storage for all your photos up to 16MP pics. Or you can use what ever your storage allotment is and store how ever big your pics/videos are.
You cant beat unlimited and free.

The only problem with Google Photos is the photos are noticeably compressed.

 

[Stevessvt]

The only problem with Google Photos is the photos are noticeably compressed.

Yeah, but there's got to be some kind of trade off for unlimited and free.

 

[Aceroller]

LOVE Google Photos. The app also loads very quickly, so I have very quick and searchable access to my 1000's of pics. Plus you can share or re-download right from the app. Very slick. My pics auto-upload, then I delete them from my device.

 

[bkends35]

I prefer iCloud photo library. I have about 15gb of photos and videos there and love the seemless integration and automatic backup. I'm certainly willing to pay $12/year for 50gb when the user experience is so much better than the others.

 

[MICHAELSD]

I prefer iCloud photo library. I have about 15gb of photos and videos there and love the seemless integration and automatic backup. I'm certainly willing to pay $12/year for 50gb when the user experience is so much better than the others.

It seems like a no-brainer to use iCloud storage over paying for the 128GB iPhone so $12/year isn't unreasonable. I'd be a lot more happy with 200GB for $24/year though. Eh, I'll make it work between Flickr and iCloud.

Which services allow you to upload uncompressed 4K video?

 

[Razeus]

Google Photos. Photos for iOS/OS X is a joke and SOOOOO far behind.

 

[bkends35]

It seems like a no-brainer to use iCloud storage over paying for the 128GB iPhone so $12/year isn't unreasonable. I'd be a lot more happy with 200GB for $24/year though. Eh, I'll make it work between Flickr and iCloud.

Which services allow you to upload uncompressed 4K video?

I'm no photographer but this 4k video may or may not be uncompressed, maybe you can tell?

 

[MICHAELSD]

I'm no photographer but this 4k video may or may not be uncompressed, maybe you can tell?

One minute of uncompressed 4K from the stock camera app is 375MB so that looks to be uncompressed.

Which service are you using?

Edit: iCloud will be uncompressed but I'm looking for something a bit more cost-effective. I'll save the 50GB for photos.

 

[MichaelMidnight]

Yeah, I'm in the same boat. I'd love to use iCloud but it's not cost effective. What looks to be good may be ponying up for Google Drive and just uploading files in their original state.

 

[MICHAELSD]

Yeah, I'm in the same boat. I'd love to use iCloud but it's not cost effective. What looks to be good may be ponying up for Google Drive and just uploading files in their original state.

iCloud and Google Drive are the same price for 1TB.

 

[predation]

My favorite is Flickr, 1 TB of free space for full sized pics and videos.

Google would be a good contender if it didn't mirror your camera roll. That's the sole reason why I don't like iCloud Photo Library. If I want to back up my pictures online, I want to be able to delete local copies and not have that deletion mirrored in the cloud.

agreed.. need a good one-way sync