Hello Friends,
A friend of mine was having problems recently because her iPhone was out of space. Apps weren't updating, some were frozen, and she hit other roadblocks all because of her storage ceiling. She asked me to take a look, and the culprit immediately jumped out at me: photos. "You have so many photos on here! You need to move them somewhere else!" I said. She didn't know how.
My friend lives in a mobile-only world, so she never connects her iPhone to a computer to offload images and backup her iPhone. She also doesn't have a home computer where she might use iCloud Photostream to back up her images to iPhoto. Nevertheless, there is one amazingly easy solution, and I'll share it with you here. As a bonus, moving the photos to a new location makes it much easier to rename and organize the images, too.
How to Move Photos Off Your Phone, Wirelessly
1. The easiest and fastest way to move photos off your phone without any cords is to use a file-syncing or backup program. So start by signing up for one of these services: IDrive, Dropbox, SugarSync, or Box. There are many other great file-syncing and backup services, but I recommend these specifically because they all offer good mobile apps. All these services have a free version, too, except SugarSync (which offers only a 90-day free trial).
2. Download and install the backup program's iPhone app. Sign into your account.
3. Turn on the app's photo upload feature. In Dropbox, it's Camera Upload in the Settings. SugarSync's is called Camera Backup in Settings. Box has Automatic Upload under File & Folder Options. And with IDrive, you'll see Auto Camera Upload as a main choice in the Backup section.
How it Works
Once this setting is enabled, the app will copy—not just sync, but make a copy—of your photos into your file-syncing account. Some of the apps have a setting that let you control whether the photos are copied only when your iPhone is connected to Wi-Fi, or even if it only has a cellular signal. That setting is helpful if you have a limited data plan. Now, any time you take a photo, it's copied into your file-syncing or backup account right away.
There are a few other features you can enable or disable related to the camera upload tool (see the video). Most of them will make your life more convenient when enabled, but will tax your phone's battery. Decide what you need. There will always be a tradeoff.
Additionally, when you log into Dropbox (or whichever service you use) on your computer or the Web, you'll see all your iPhone photos in a folder. They'll be there even if you delete the photos from your iPhone, which you should do if you need to free up space!
Back up iPhone using your Windows PC
Connect iPhone and your computer using USB.
In the iTunes app on your PC, click the iPhone button near the top left of the iTunes window.
Click Summary.
Click Back Up Now (below Backups).
To encrypt your backups, select “Encrypt local backup,” type a password, then click Set Password.
To see the backups stored on your computer, choose Edit > Preferences, then click Devices. Encrypted backups have a lock icon in the list of backups.
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