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If you don’t want to pay for extra gigabytes in iCloud, try these other ways to backup your photos and other iPhone files.

For convenient backups, you can’t beat the always available, device-independent cloud. And iPhones make backing up to iCloud as simple as can be. Just turn on the option and stand back; your phone will periodically copy everything stored on it to the cloud. The only problem most users will ever encounter is running out of iCloud space: You get just 5GB of storage free, and that’s not very much in the grand scheme of things.

The easiest solution, of course, is to buy more space when the 5 gigs run out. But iCloud storage is subscription-based, which means that you’ll have to pay monthly (currently $0.99 for 50GB, $2.99 for 200GB, or $9.99 for 2TB). If you do not want running costs, you’ll have to look elsewhere. Let’s explore some alternatives.

• Where to copy iPhone files: Cloud storage
  • iPhone backup to Google Drive
    
  • iPhone backup to Yandex.Disk
    
  • Third-party cloud backups and privacy issues
    
• Where to copy iPhone files: Another device
  • iPhone backup to a Windows or macOS computer (except Catalina)
    
  • iPhone backup to a macOS Catalina computer
    
  • iPhone backup to an external or flash drive
    
• Where to make iPhone backups: Summary
  

Where to copy iPhone files: Other cloud storage

iCloud is by no means the only cloud storage out (or up) there. But most other providers offer a similar amount of free space, sometimes even less. For example, OneDrive gives users the same 5GB at no charge, after which you’ll have to pay a subscription fee. DropBox’s free storage is limited to 2GB, and Amazon Drive offers nothing at all unless you are signed up for Amazon Prime — and even then it’s just the same 5GB.

What’s more, most providers charge roughly the same for extra space as iCloud does, so it makes little sense to pay for third-party cloud storage. That said, you can use a couple of cloud services free — under certain conditions.

iPhone backup to Google Drive

Unlike other cloud services, Google Drive provides 15GB of free storage space for data (of any kind). Even better, you can upload photos with a resolution of up to 16 megapixels (by comparison, iPhone 11 Pro cameras have a resolution of 12 megapixels) and video in 1080p HD format (if you choose unlimited storage, your 4K videos will get compressed to 1080p) and these photos and videos don’t count as part of the 15GB quota.
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