Having access to a smartphone with a high-quality camera has tremendous benefits. We can photograph everything in our life and transfer it to our PCs. But the storage space is limited and runs out fast. Even if you purchase an external hard disk, it always fills up sooner or later.
As we capture more photos, backup our photos etc, we run into the same storage issue as before. In this article, we’ve compiled a list of popular online photo backup services to save your photos and free-up local storage.
Apple iCloud
Apple iCloud offers 5 GB of online storage, which can be availed using your Apple ID. The paid plans of iCloud come in various flavors. For decent annual subscriptions, you can get 50 GB, 200 GB, and 1 TB of storage.
iCloud makes it easy to search and organize your photos. Just tag names and locations in your photos to find a photo you captured years ago. You can synchronize your photos on the cloud with other devices at home. Within a few minutes, your photos can be accessed from your Mac, iPhone, computer, and tablet. If you’re using iCloud on your Mac, it runs in the background and keeps an eye on new files to automatically sync and back up.
pCloud
pCloud offers free storage of up to 10 GB coupled with a simple & easy to use interface. pCloud is located in Switzerland, a country with strict data privacy laws, and offers various privacy features.
While every other cloud service charges users on a monthly or yearly basis, pCloud is perhaps the only cloud platform that offers a one-time payment (lifetime) plan. With 500 GB and 2 TB of lifetime plans, you do not have to worry about recurring payment charges. Nevertheless, you can choose an annual plan instead of a large one-time fee.
With pCloud, it’s possible to share large files even with people who don’t have a pCloud account. They will receive an email notification about your file and download the large file.
Flickr
Flickr is a popular cloud photo hosting service and a social networking platform. The free plan of Flickr has a quota of 1,000 photos. You can store additional photos by purchasing a subscription.
One of the main drawbacks of Flickr is the lack of a synchronization feature. Flickr does not support the RAW photo format at this moment.
Flickr preserves your original photo resolution so you don’t have to worry about degrading photo quality because of compression.
Adobe Creative Cloud
If you’re already using an Adobe product, you are already subscribed to Adobe Creative Cloud as part of your subscription. You can store your photos at no cost. Depending on your subscription plan, you’ll get storage space of up to 10 TB.
If you’re looking for a free plan, you would be disappointed. The service is only available for paying users.
Apart from cloud storage, you can edit, search and organize your photos. The search feature is powered by artificial intelligence. You may also use various social graphics, access a large library of Lightroom presets etc. There are also features to easily share your photos with family and friends.
Your Adobe CC storage can be accessed using the Web, Windows, macOS, Android and iOS.
iDrive
iDrive is a photo and file storage management service that offers a comprehensive all-in-one backup. It provides simple backup and restore functions from your Android smartphone or iPhone. You can share photos with others, and download them from any device.
Your photos on iDrive are encrypted with AES-256 standard. iDrive also offers end-to-end encryption, although it is optional.
You can also use the versioning feature to restore an earlier version of your photo should anything go wrong while photo editing. However, the file versioning feature is limited in nature. Also, file sharing is not supported while using the secured mode.
