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how do you back up your photos?

R

Ruffian829

macrumors 6502
Original poster
This is kind of a Macbook and iPhone question, but since most of my usage is on my iphone and ipad, I seem to only be using the macbook for occassional use and storage, I thought it would be most helpful to post here...
My iphone 4s has run out of space- mostly due to the photos being 8MP I think (iTunes says photos are definitely taking up the most room, along with "other" and I'm not quite sure what that is)
My macbook is also running out of discspace
So how do you back up your photos (on an iPad/iPhone/macbook)?
I do not really want to pay for icloud service (but will if that is the best option). I have an external harddrive but I find it a PITA to actually find the time to sit down and sync my phone photos to my macbook (still running leopard so no icloud syncing there- which is ok at the moment since there wouldn't be room for it to sync anyways) and then hook up the external HD and back up the photos and other documents.
Is there a more streamlined way to do this? Is there a different method of storage I should consider? I would love something more "automatic" but I'm not sure a time capsule is in my budget and I'm not sure I want to back up via timemachine... I want to be able to delete files (photos, music, etc) from my computer and phone and then pull them back up when I need them (I heard that is not how timemachine works)
I know places like shutterfly offer online storage but I worry about the quality of a photo after its been uploaded to shutterfly and then downloaded again if I need it... plus, what if shutterfly goes out of business or something?
Is there wireless external harddrives that I could access via my iphone and put photos in there?
 
Not Auto - But it works

I don't auto back up anything. I do however, take a ton of pictures! So every 3 days or so, I literally just plug iPhone into computer, go to my computer, open up the folder, grab the pictures and transfer them to a dated folder in my pictures in my computer.

Probably not the best answer! But it's what I do.
 
I'm not sure how this is more difficult than backing anything else up, either back it up in the iPhone backup or use image capture to back up somewhere else, especially if you have 2 USB ports on your computer and can plug in an external drive and the phone at the same time. If you're generally running out of space that's a different issue, but seeing as you can but external drives for $0.16 per GB these days it's a no brainer to go pick up another one.
 
Interstella5555 said:
I'm not sure how this is more difficult than backing anything else up, either back it up in the iPhone backup or use image capture to back up somewhere else, especially if you have 2 USB ports on your computer and can plug in an external drive and the phone at the same time. If you're generally running out of space that's a different issue, but seeing as you can but external drives for $0.16 per GB these days it's a no brainer to go pick up another one.
Click to expand...

Mainly because I am hardly ever on my MacBook except (it seems) to sync my phone and back up everything. I'd like to be able to do that without using my MacBook as an intermediary.
 
About once a week (or continually through Photostream) I transfer my photos from my iPhone to iPhoto on my Mac mini. However, I too was running out of room.

So, I bought a 1TB external drive, and now I keep my master photos on that external drive and I keep the iPhoto library on my internal hard drive (after researching I found this configuration saves a lot of space on my computer, yet the program still runs quickly because the library in on the internal drive).

For good measure, I back up my Mac mini and the 1 TB external drive on a 2 TB external drive through Time Machine.
 
SurferMan said:
Use Image Capture, it's what I use for the iPhones for pics/vids, easy to use and works fast.
Click to expand...

Maybe I'm just not understand what image capture is? It seems like it is just a program to get photos off of your camera or iPhone and onto the computer rather than using iPhoto?
 
Ruffian829 said:
Maybe I'm just not understand what image capture is? It seems like it is just a program to get photos off of your camera or iPhone and onto the computer rather than using iPhoto?
Click to expand...
Looking at your other post, your only real choices are paying for more cloud space, or just using something like Image Capture. Not sure what you mean by it being a pain to connect and sync with an external drive? Mine connects fast and though I don't really use it for photo backup, if I wanted to all I have to do is copy/move the images from Image Capture folder to the drive and that's it.

You could try drop box but you still have to keep moving files to the Computer or external drive as you only get like 5gb free, unless you pay for more storage.
 
SurferMan said:
Looking at your other post, your only real choices are paying for more cloud space, or just using something like Image Capture. Not sure what you mean by it being a pain to connect and sync with an external drive? Mine connects fast and though I don't really use it for photo backup, if I wanted to all I have to do is copy/move the images from Image Capture folder to the drive and that's it.

You could try drop box but you still have to keep moving files to the Computer or external drive as you only get like 5gb free, unless you pay for more storage.
Click to expand...

What I am wondering (and I agree my original post did not get the point across clearly) is if there is a way to back up to an external harddrive without having to use my MacBook? Straight from the phone to the harddrive.

Prior to posting the only solution I came up with was to sync to my Macbook and then backup onto a harddrive. Since I hardly ever use my MacBook I don't usually think to take the time to sit down and sync my phone and then back up the files. It's just a process and something I don't usually find time for in my day... It would be great to just be able to back up to the harddrive from the phone when im thinking about it. But I'm not sure that's possible.

The other thought was to wirelessly (and maybe continuously) backup the MacBook (via time machine) but that still involves having to manually plug in the phone and then back up the files. And I'm not sure a time machine back up accomplishes what I want.

I'm not saying its a big deal but I was wondering how others backed up their photos and then their phones and MacBooks and such in general. I just don't easily find the time to sit down and play around with the storage and backing up of my devices. And for some reason I really dislike having to sync my phone with my MacBook. It always downloads random apps that I've deleted, downloads my husbands apps, it's super slow, etc. I am hoping to cut out the middle man so to speak.
 
Ruffian829 said:
What I am wondering (and I agree my original post did not get the point across clearly) is if there is a way to back up to an external harddrive without having to use my MacBook? Straight from the phone to the harddrive.

Prior to posting the only solution I came up with was to sync to my Macbook and then backup onto a harddrive. Since I hardly ever use my MacBook I don't usually think to take the time to sit down and sync my phone and then back up the files. It's just a process and something I don't usually find time for in my day... It would be great to just be able to back up to the harddrive from the phone when im thinking about it. But I'm not sure that's possible.

The other thought was to wirelessly (and maybe continuously) backup the MacBook (via time machine) but that still involves having to manually plug in the phone and then back up the files. And I'm not sure a time machine back up accomplishes what I want.

I'm not saying its a big deal but I was wondering how others backed up their photos and then their phones and MacBooks and such in general. I just don't easily find the time to sit down and play around with the storage and backing up of my devices. And for some reason I really dislike having to sync my phone with my MacBook. It always downloads random apps that I've deleted, downloads my husbands apps, it's super slow, etc. I am hoping to cut out the middle man so to speak.
Click to expand...

No, there is no way to back up to an external drive without using a computer as there is no functionality on the iPhone to connect directly with a HDD drive. While there are devices that can function like this, they are rare and far between. There have been numerous suggestions to do what you want, but if the real issue is the "inconvenience" of plugging in two devices to your computer, both of which are highly mobile and small in size,or paying for more iCloud storage it seems like it's really going to have to be a personal choice.
 
On that note... Can anyone recommend good cloud storage? I use Dropbox all the time for documents but I just read it gives you a compressed grainy version of a photo when you DL them from the dropbox app.
 
I second Google Photos. I've been using it since it debuted and it has been nothing but spectacular. All my photos are synced across all devices regardless of whether they are iOS or Android, it just works flawlessly on both.

And Google photos makes these little animations for you that are actually quite nice, it even created some collages/movies for me complete with photos and clips when it knew I was taking a trip. It uses your location to determine whether you're somewhere special or just on a daily routine. I find it pretty cool and as someone else mentioned, it is completely unlimited and you can even delete your photos or videos from your device and Google will keep your backups in the cloud. You can always redownload them as well if you wish.
 
crammedberry said:
I second Google Photos. I've been using it since it debuted and it has been nothing but spectacular. All my photos are synced across all devices regardless of whether they are iOS or Android, it just works flawlessly on both.

And Google photos makes these little animations for you that are actually quite nice, it even created some collages/movies for me complete with photos and clips when it knew I was taking a trip. It uses your location to determine whether you're somewhere special or just on a daily routine. I find it pretty cool and as someone else mentioned, it is completely unlimited and you can even delete your photos or videos from your device and Google will keep your backups in the cloud. You can always redownload them as well if you wish.
Click to expand...

Yes! The collections and little movies it makes are great. The next update will let you and someone else collaborate in a same album too.
 
I use iCloud Photo Library for a ~500GB library. Too bad that as a victim of their own success, none of my Apple hardware can handle it very well, including an Air 2 and brand new 6s Plus.

I also backup that whole library to Google Photos, Amazon, Flickr and One drive(this last one still in progress). I use Dropbox for documents, but never tried camera backup yet. So far I'm trying to limit the paid options to just iCloud.

Also the obvious time machine, as well as crashplan and a rotating off-site external drive backup at least once a month.

Let's just say I've hit over a TB each of the past few months pushing photos to the cloud.
 
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