How To Back Up Photos from an iPhone
Hey everyone, today's Memory Keeping Monday is a little guest-share from my sweet friend Jenn Brown of Jenn Brown Photo. She has a special story to share along with a how-to when it comes to backing up photos from your iPhone.
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"It’s been 8 months since my sister lost her phone to an unfortunate water accident, and in those 8 months there have been a lot of sadness and anger.Of course anyone who loses his or her phone is automatically upset because then you have to go through the process of purchasing a new phone.If you don’t carry insurance, then you have to try and find a used phone you can afford until your contract is up for renewal.It almost reminds you of car shopping: stressful and inconvenient.
There is just one piece to this story that breaks my heart for her (other than losing her iPhone). You see, my sister did not use a separate camera from her phone to take pictures.The first year and a half of her son’s life was documented on this phone. And it was gone. Down the toilet. Literally.
Knowing how I would feel if I lost every image on my phone to an accident with no back up, I tried everything to help make it better.I uploaded all the images I had taken of him and put them on an online gallery for her to back up, print from, and relish in. But that just wasn’t enough.
Because I have don’t live with her 24-7, she had tons of images and videos of her son’s milestones. First teeth, crawling, saying his first words, smiles, walking, and his first birthday… just to name a few.
She cried. Hard. No back ups had been made, not even to the cloud. Poof – all those gorgeous images of her son’s first moments of life gone in an instant.
It was at this point that I realized just how important even our phone’s photo galleries were. I don’t carry around my DSLR everywhere I go because, well, I don’t want to look like a nerd, look intrusive, or I simply don’t want to lug yet another bag with me. I use my iPhone a lot for family photos, exploring, or for that gorgeous sunset when we are out and about.
Immediately I backed up both my phone and my husband’s phone to an external hard drive. Then I showed my sister how I backed our phones up so she could do the same at her house whenever she wanted. And if you haven’t done this, you need to. Right now.
Since we use iPhones, I’m going to explain how to back one up 3 separate ways. I’m sure backing an android would be similar, though.
1) The Cloud
Apple gives you free cloud storage .You can easily set your iPhone photos to store in the cloud by going to Settings > iCloud > Photos > and selecting the iCloud Photo Library.
2) iTunes
You can back your ENTIRE iPhone up to iTunes even down to your text messages. I highly recommend you do this often.It helps when upgrading your phone and getting all of your images, texts, contacts, and I believe your apps back on your phone quickly. However, if you use this option and deleted photos from the last back up, well.. they are gone. So I highly suggest #3.
3) External Hard Drive
This is major. For someone like me who takes pictures of everything, I have to do this step. I have filled my 16GB iPhone twice, so once I back up I can go through and delete the images off of my phone except for my have to have images and videos. Also, I back my images up in two places: my computer and an external drive.
How I import is I will pull my images through Lightroom. I understand not everyone has this software, and if you don’t then you should go through your computer’s photo software that it comes with. iPhoto will do the same thing. Upload all of your images to the photo software, and then save them all on one folder in you external hard drive. My file names will look like this “Jenn’s iPhone>Year>Month>Date”
Once you’ve done this you can now upload to an online printing company and have some of those images printed!
See how easy it is! But what about those prints again?
So glad you asked. Digital files are only as good as the technology we have. And sometimes technology fails. Another great back up option is printing those pictures!
If you have computer access, then I suggest printing through Shutterfly or mpix.com. They have the BEST quality when it comes to consumer photo labs! You can create an account quickly and upload the images you want to print right away.
If you do not have computer access, then the app I recommend you download is Artifact Uprising. You can choose from Square Print Set of 25 images for $21.99 to a photo book starting at $16.99 for 40 pages. Super affordable and extremely cute.This app will even log into your Instagram account so you can print images from there!
What are you waiting for? Friends, don’t let friends lose their images on their phone to a water accident or stolen phone.Share this post and back up those images right now and print them! They will thank you later.
Visit Jenn online at her website: http://jennbrownphoto.com/
Thanks for sharing Jenn!
