Few things are worse than running out of space for photos and videos on your phone. And I’m not just talking about running low on space, I’m talking being so out of space that pressing the camera shutter button does nothing.
I use an iPhone, and many people I know think they’re covered because they back up to iCloud. While that sounds correct on the surface, iCloud only makes sure what you have on one device matches what’s on all your devices. That makes it super helpful when you get a new phone or are forced to restore because of technical problems. But it won’t save a copy of every photo and video and allow you to do a mass delete to make room. And things get even more dicey if you only shelled out for a 16GB or smaller device — it’s amazing how fast those things fill up.
That said, there are ways to save those precious memories and still have space to spare. Let’s go over two of the most popular ways — Google and Flickr — and start with more good news: You can do most if not all of it for free.
Google Photos offers two options: One is high quality, where you get unlimited free storage for photos and videos, but they might not be saved in the full resolution. With high quality, everything is backed up as captured if the file is no more than 16 megapixels or 1080p HD video. Anything beyond that and Google will compress to fit.
The other is original, which allows photos and videos to be stored in their original size, however this counts toward the 15GB free storage limit on your Google account. You can pay an additional fee to boost that capacity, if you wish. You could get an additional 100 GB for just $2 a month, but I think the high quality option will be sufficient for most people.
Flickr
Flickr offers every user 1 terabyte of free storage. (For those of you who can’t let gigabytes go, that’s 1,000 GBs.) Unlike Google, resolution isn’t an issue here, however there are size limits placed on files. A photo must be 200 MB or less in size and a video must be no more than 1 GB in size and no more than 3 minutes long. Remember that while 1 TB will last a long time, there’s no way at present to add more than 1 TB of space.
So as you can see, each service is different. But one of them is likely to be just right for 99 percent of users.
I just covered the most basic parts of backing up your photos to Google and Flickr. I definitely recommend trying each and seeing which one you like better. And here’s something to consider: Flickr is free, and because an extra backup — or several — is always recommended, you can easily use both. Once you turn the services on, they work in the background so there’s little you need to worry about. Just sit back and let technology do its thing.
Have questions about social media? Tweet them to @scottkleinberg with hashtag #SoSocial. He might use yours in a future column.
![“Let the music do the talking,” sang Phish vocalist-guitarist Trey Anastasio at the outset of the band’s concert Saturday at the Sphere in Las Vegas. Normally, hearing that advice from a well-disciplined virtuoso who seemingly never tires of the stage and worships the groove would pass without a hint of potential irony. However, given the group was not even one minute into the third of its sold-out four-night stand at the $2.3 billion dome — expressly devised to push sensory boundaries to previously uncharted limits — one couldn’t help wonder how seriously Phish would take its own instruction. Turns out […]](https://www.chicagotribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/CTC-L-ENT-PHISH-04-e1713888536637.jpg?w=620 "“Let the music do the talking,” sang Phish vocalist-guitarist Trey Anastasio at the outset of the band’s concert Saturday at the Sphere in Las Vegas. Normally, hearing that advice from a well-disciplined virtuoso who seemingly never tires of the stage and worships the groove would pass without a hint of potential irony. However, given the group was not even one minute into the third of its sold-out four-night stand at the $2.3 billion dome — expressly devised to push sensory boundaries to previously uncharted limits — one couldn’t help wonder how seriously Phish would take its own instruction. Turns out […]")
