Back up your phone's photos (iPhone and Android)

Phones get dropped, lost and drowned. The photos on them don't have to go with them.

iPhone

• Turn on iCloud Photos: Settings, your name, iCloud, Photos
• Check you have enough iCloud storage: the free amount fills up quickly, and a full iCloud quietly stops backing up
• Open Photos and scroll to the bottom: it shows whether everything has uploaded

Android

• Open Google Photos, tap your profile picture and turn on backup
• Check your Google storage: like iCloud, a full account stops backing up
• Google Photos shows when the last backup finished

Keep a second copy

A cloud backup is one copy. For the photos that matter most, keep another: download them to a computer or an external drive a few times a year. That way a locked account or an accidental deletion can't take everything.

Check it once a month

Open your photos on a computer or in a web browser, and find something from last week. If it's there, your backup is working.

If photos are already lost, stop using the phone and call us: they can often be recovered. We also set up backups for families so they just work.

More tips

• How to spot a scam e-mail in 30 seconds
• Is your backup actually working?
• Wi-Fi keeps dropping? Try this first
• What to do if your e-mail or an account gets hacked
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