Is iCloud backing up your photos?
The answer is that it might be.
When iPhone users sync their phone to the Apple iCloud servers, they may assume that their photos are being backed up. But Apple iCloud is only a sync which means what exists on the cloud is a mirror of what exists on your phone.
And that means without iCloud Backup enabled, when you delete a photo off your phone you're deleting it off iCloud, too.
Unfortunately that means iPhone users can mistakenly delete photos and files off their phones believing them to be safely on the cloud when they're not.
iCloud Backup does exist.
Enable this option by going to Settings > [Your Name] > iCloud > iCloud Backup and turn on the toggle by Back Up This iPhone. In iOS version 10.2 or earlier, go to Settings > iCloud > Backup.
According to Apple, "When you set up iCloud, you automatically get 5GB of storage. You can use that storage space for your iCloud backups, to keep your photos and videos stored in iCloud Photos, and your documents up to date in iCloud Drive." To get a full list of what is included in iCloud backup and how it works, click here.
Even if you do enable a backup, you're paying a monthly fee for your storage (beyond the initial 5GB). If you stop paying that monthly fee, you lose all your data.
Other Options (It's not good news)
Backup solutions for your photos and videos are available, including creating a series of external hard drive backups or using other cloud services.
There are many cloud services, including Google Photos, Amazon Photos, and photo services like Shutterfly and SmugMug. People upload photos to Shutterfly to create photo books and believe that is a backup as well. People also post photos to social media believing that will always be there, like Facebook or Instagram.
Unfortunately, despite your payments to them the storage at most cloud services does not belong to you. You're renting space on Apple, Google, or Amazon servers, and if you read the fine print, they make no promises about preserving your memories. Just like iCloud Backup, if you stop making monthly payments, you lose it.
Worse yet, if you create photo books in services like Shutterfly, you cannot export those projects. Those print projects belong to those services. And they also make no promises about preserving those photos for you.
And even worse yet, the copies of the photos you upload to Facebook and Instagram are compressed. Facebook users upload more than 3 million photos a day. That’s a lot of data to store, and your feed needs to load quickly or users won’t stay engaged. To lighten that load, Facebook compresses your images.
What does compressing an image mean? Your photos are made tiny. Pixels are eliminated. Facebook and Instagram were created for posting & sharing images. Facebook is not designed to store your most prized possessions.
Finally, external hard drives can and do fail. In researching this article, I found some startling information. External hard drives, like other storage devices, have a limited lifespan.
You need a better solution.
Consider FOREVER® Permanent Storage
Permanent storage solutions for your digital photos and videos are only available right now through FOREVER®.
When you purchase FOREVER® Storage, about 70% of the payment is deposited into the FOREVER® Guarantee Fund. That money is invested so that it increases in value and pays for the recurring maintenance and preservation costs of your FOREVER® Storage, as well as the migration of your content to new digital formats over time.
Similar to a university endowment, the money invested is carefully managed to fund the preservation of your content over a very long period of time. It is fully restricted, meaning that they can only withdraw a very small amount from the Fund each year, and the money withdrawn must be used to preserve and protect your digital content.
Life insurance companies use carefully managed reserve funds to make sure they can always pay claims. Universities use carefully managed endowments to pay for their operations over hundreds of years.
In the same way, FOREVER® uses their reserved fund to save, protect, and make your information available for generations into the future.
I don't usually encourage my clients to purchase things. I am not an organizer that has products to sell and buying something doesn't automatically make your organizing more easy to do.
But preserving your memories in a permanent, secure, and private space is so much safer than hoping that your phone backs up to the cloud correctly, or that your series of external hard drives don't fail, or that your online service doesn't decide to delete your photos or restrict access. These are the belongings that you cannot replace.
If you want to learn more about FOREVER®, please reach out to me here.
Your memories are too precious to lose.
When you're ready to tackle your tough organization project, I am here to help you learn how.
Let's RETHINK organization together.
For more information, visit the RETHINK website today.
Mandy Thomas is a professional organizer fulfilling her lifelong passion for creating order out of chaos. She finds joy in helping people tackle their most overwhelming spaces and collections to create the optimal living space and enjoy their homes.
RETHINK organization is on a mission to help you develop long-term patterns of organization that you can maintain and feel good about long after our work together is done.
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