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Your Tech Makeover is a practical tech podcast for everyday people who want clearer answers about phones, passwords, Wi-Fi, smart home devices, online safety, and AI, without the jargon.
If technology often feels harder than it should, you are not alone. Frank Bravo breaks down what matters in plain English so you can make better choices, avoid common mistakes, and feel more confident day to day.
Each episode focuses on one topic you can use right away: backups, scams and phishing, subscriptions, cloud storage, video calls, travel tech, accessibility, and more. The goal is simple: help you get more out of the tech you already own.
New episodes drop every two weeks. Listen wherever you get podcasts, and visit YourTechMakeover.com for show notes and links.
00;01;59;22 - 00;02;20;13
Speaker 1
I would bet that somewhere on your phone right now, there's a photo that you'd be very sad if you were to lose it. Maybe it's of your kid on the first day of school. Maybe it's the last picture you took of your parent, or a dog, or a house you don't live in anymore. If I asked if you had a second copy of that photo, a lot of us would admit that we have not an idea of where that second copy might be.
00;02;20;16 - 00;02;35;15
Speaker 1
That's not carelessness, because when we all got our phones, nobody ever sat us down and explained where the pictures go. So today we're going to fix that.
00;02;35;17 - 00;02;55;27
Speaker 1
Welcome to your Tech Makeover, the podcast that gives you tips and tricks to help you simplify and get more out of the technology in your life. I'm your host, Frank Bravo. Today's topic is cloud photo backup. We're going to talk about what that actually means and what it means to have your photos backed up, and why every single one of us seem to run out of free space at the worst possible moment.
00;02;56;01 - 00;03;17;18
Speaker 1
Then we'll talk about how iCloud, Google Photos, and even Amazon Photos really compare and where you are just trying to make sure that you don't lose the pictures that matter. We are heading into the part of the year where people take the most photos. Thanksgiving, the holidays, family gatherings are all around the corner and this is a good moment to get settled in before your camera roll.
00;03;17;19 - 00;03;35;29
Speaker 1
Doubles in size. Let me just say that one of the things I worry about most with my files is my photos. I'm very paranoid about losing my photo library, and a little later on in this episode, I'm going to describe the exact steps that I take to make sure that I am secured where my library is backed up.
00;03;36;01 - 00;03;53;26
Speaker 1
And I can tell you that on my phone, it's not the same as being backed up. So there's a distinction that everyone has to understand that just because it's on your phone doesn't mean it's backed up. And I will talk through what I do in my own library to understand and make sure that I know where all my photos are.
00;03;53;29 - 00;04;12;23
Speaker 1
So there are actually three different states that a photo can be in, and we tend to use one word for all of them. So the first state is that it's on your phone. That's it. You know, you take the picture. It's exactly in one place. It's that small rectangular glass that we carry around. We drop, we leave in a restaurant, maybe we take to the beach and it gets covered in sand.
00;04;12;27 - 00;04;36;26
Speaker 1
If your phone goes into a lake or into the ocean, then that photo went into the lake and ocean with it. The second copy is a synced copy. Now, sinking means that your phone and some service are keeping a match set. It takes the photo and it shows up on that service. That sounds like safety, but the real important part of this is that you don't actually have a backup of that photo.
00;04;36;27 - 00;04;57;22
Speaker 1
And you've heard me talk about this before. That sinking runs in two directions. So if I delete the photo on my phone, it also syncs and deletes that photo everywhere else. So it's still very good, and it's exactly what you want in that point of time, but it's not something that you'll have forever in this case, because if you delete it, it goes away.
00;04;57;24 - 00;05;27;17
Speaker 1
And then the third, which I know you've talked about, I've talked about on this podcast before and you've heard me say it before, is backing up backup means that there is a second copy somewhere that doesn't disappear just because something happened to the first one. So it survives the ocean, it survives the accidental delete, and at least for a while, because these systems do delete these files after a period of time, but they do stay in a trash photo folder that you can go back and get those files from later on.
00;05;27;24 - 00;05;49;25
Speaker 1
And here's why I'm making such a big point about this. Most people I talk to believe they have all three covered, but 99% of the time they're actually in the second one. And honestly, that second state is fine for a lot of people most of the time. But I want you to know where you are because the I thought it backed it up sentence is something that I hear about a lot.
00;05;49;27 - 00;06;11;09
Speaker 1
So we've got ourselves at least to the second tier. Let's just agree with that. But then you get a message about being out of space. If you've ever gotten that message, you feel a small flash of irritation as you're being asked for money. And I feel for you because free tears are small on purpose. Apple only gives you five gigabytes of free iCloud storage space.
00;06;11;12 - 00;06;37;00
Speaker 1
And with the regular Apple account, that's not very much. A modern phone could easily shoot by that five gigabytes with videos and a decent afternoon at a soccer game. And that space is also shared with other Apple services, so it really isn't that much. Google, on the other hand, gives you 15GB of free, which sounds way better until you learn that that 15 gigs is actually shared across your photos, your Gmail, and your Google Drive.
00;06;37;06 - 00;06;58;05
Speaker 1
So if you have the same Google address since the early 2000 and never deleted anything, a good chunk of that is probably already filled up with mail. The one that gave me a surprise was about Amazon. Amazon actually gives you five gigabytes free as well. But there's one big exception to that. And you know, none of this free stuff is accidental.
00;06;58;07 - 00;07;16;21
Speaker 1
Free is good to start because they get you into the process. And once you get things automatically flowing into those tools, they will charge you. And when you hit that wall, it's a lot easier just to pay. Rather than trying to move it someplace else. Because that sounds exhausting. And the worst thing you could do is actually split them up.
00;07;16;21 - 00;07;40;19
Speaker 1
But I'll talk about that in a minute. So I just want you to know that you are in this decision making process, and instead of just panicking one night, you can actually think about what makes the most sense. And we're going to get into that in a minute. The good news is, is that the paid tears are actually pretty reasonably priced across all three of these companies a couple of hundred gigabytes, which again, sounds like a lot, but maybe isn't.
00;07;40;22 - 00;08;04;18
Speaker 1
It only runs about $3 a month. Two terabytes run, about $10 a month, and two terabytes of photos for a family is huge. To give you some contacts, my library is just shy of 200GB, and there's something like 40,000 images in it. So for most households, the $3 monthly plan is plenty, and it's roughly the price of one coffee to never think about it again.
00;08;04;21 - 00;08;25;12
Speaker 1
A quick shout out to listeners like you who helped make your tech make over possible. Your support helps keep this podcast going and I truly appreciate it. Want to contribute? Just click the link in the show notes or visit your tech back over. Plus, as a thank you, supporters who give $25 or more will get $25 off a one time consultation with me to help you simplify your tech.
00;08;25;18 - 00;08;48;19
Speaker 1
Thanks for being part of the Your Tech Makeover community. Now back to what I was saying. So let me compare these different plans. I've talked about Google and iCloud before and different kinds of storage, but I want to look at it on just the photo side of things. So Apple iCloud is Apple's main thing, and this is great if you have a household of iPhones, iPads and Max.
00;08;48;23 - 00;09;07;23
Speaker 1
This is your go to place and there's really no reason to look for anything else. When you turn on iCloud photos, it just works and it keeps working. And then all your photos appear on every other devices. While it makes it easy for your Apple users if you need to add an Android phone. It becomes obvious that iCloud is not your correct choice.
00;09;07;23 - 00;09;29;10
Speaker 1
So if you're all Apple and everybody's Apple, iCloud is a place to be. If you have a mixed family of different devices, then Google Photos is the one that you probably want to look at, and it's the one where Android is the most logical choice. So if your Android, then this is where you want to be. This solution works with iPhones, to which people often overlook.
00;09;29;14 - 00;09;51;22
Speaker 1
The real advantage is if you're already in the Google ecosystem, then you already have a Google Photos account. Like I mentioned before, the Amazon Photo one surprised me when I was doing research for this episode. It's maybe your best deal if you are already a prime number. Prime members get unlimited full resolution photo storage at no extra cost, at least as of this recording.
00;09;51;28 - 00;10;17;23
Speaker 1
Not compressed, not shrunk down. Unlimited. And that is a remarkable offer and nobody actually knows about it. I mean, like I said, I didn't know about it when I started this episode. There's a catch, however, and it's really a big one. The unlimited amount only applies to photos. If you take videos and you upload them, those are capped at the five gigabytes, which is free, which is also something that you probably fill up immediately.
00;10;17;26 - 00;10;38;13
Speaker 1
So if you shoot a lot of video, Amazon only solves half your problem with the free tier. While the video part is going to cost you. All of these services have search that has gotten a lot better in the most recent years. You can type in beach or birthday cake or a person's name, and it will find pictures from 11 years ago that you forgot that you even had.
00;10;38;16 - 00;11;05;11
Speaker 1
If there's a large, disorganized library like most of us have, that search is an important piece. Personally, because I'm all Apple, I use iCloud for everything, and you've heard me talk about that before. That's not to say that I don't use Google Photos, and I am going to go look at Amazon Photos too, because that is interesting. My younger son is an Android user, so when we share pictures with him, the only way around it is to go into the Google world.
00;11;05;12 - 00;11;24;22
Speaker 1
But in general, I would suggest that you pick one, turn it on and try not to use all three, because if you try to use all three, it's going to be hard. I meet a lot of people that are half using two of these services, because some of the photos are in iCloud, some ended up on Google because of an old phone, or because they loaded Google Photos.
00;11;24;22 - 00;11;47;05
Speaker 1
And then Google tried to help by importing all their images. And it's hard to get things back in one place. Not impossible, but kind of hard. You want to make sure that when you pick one, that you fully turn it on with enough storage so you don't lose anything. Now let me tell you what I do because I have a second or third or fourth copy of that image somewhere else.
00;11;47;07 - 00;12;10;10
Speaker 1
Since I'm all Apple, and since I have enough storage on my main computer, I have turned on the option to turn on Apple Photos to download the originals to my Mac. What that does is instead of the low resolution version of the image, I get the full resolution version save to the storage on my local computer. Obviously, you need enough local storage to be able to do that, but if you have it, it's totally worth it.
00;12;10;13 - 00;12;30;14
Speaker 1
Then, because I use Time Machine to back up my computer, the library with the full resolution images are backed up. If something happens to iCloud, I know I have a copy. Then I also use Backblaze, which is an online backup to back up my machine off site. So I have yet another copy of my library there. Is it overkill?
00;12;30;17 - 00;12;51;07
Speaker 1
Yeah, probably. But I always know that I'll have a copy of my photo library somewhere. All right, that's a lot of information, but here's the takeaways. First, let's figure out what you're actually doing on an iPhone. Open up settings, tap your name, then iCloud, then photos and see whether it's on. If it is, then keep it on. If it's not.
00;12;51;08 - 00;13;15;10
Speaker 1
You probably want to consider turning that on. On Android, open the photos app and then tap your profile in the corner, and then you'll be able to see whether that's backed up as well. Then check how much room you have left that's usually in the same screen. If you're near or over that limit, you're going to want to either move the images off the device or upgrade presuming that you're already there.
00;13;15;12 - 00;13;38;13
Speaker 1
Pick a service based on the device in your households. Like I said, if you're all iPhones and Apple devices use iCloud, anything mixed, you probably want to consider Google Photos. If you're already paying for Prime and shoot mostly images, then Amazon Photos might be the real saver there. Then pay for the tier that fits you. And for most families, that's the 2 or $3 plan.
00;13;38;14 - 00;13;59;02
Speaker 1
Set it up and stop thinking about it with iCloud. If you have multiple people, you should really check out the Family Sharing option. If there are three of you paying $3, you might want to look at the two terabyte version, which is $10 a month, and then save that space over everybody's device. Then wait for the sinking to happen and then check it.
00;13;59;02 - 00;14;22;00
Speaker 1
This is going to take a long time. Like I am working with a client right now who has a almost 1.5TB photo library. It's going to take days for that to sync, but when it does, you'll have all your photos everywhere. And I have told her once it's done syncing, open the service on another computer or another device and confirm that all your pictures are there.
00;14;22;04 - 00;14;44;10
Speaker 1
If you can see them somewhere that's not your phone, then you're done. So that's it. If you want to hear more about photos, then join me next time where I pick this up right where we're leaving it off. Keeping your photos safe and getting them to the people that want to see them are actually two different problems. And next time we'll talk about sharing images with family and friends without texting 50 images at a time.
00;14;44;16 - 00;15;04;07
Speaker 1
But before you do that, when you go to check your storage this week, let me know what you find and whether the backup has quietly stopped working. For some reason, without telling you, I have a suspicion that this happens to most of us without us even realizing, and it's a common problem, and it's worth almost an episode by its own, which I might do in the future.
00;15;04;09 - 00;15;25;23
Speaker 1
So let me know about that. And as always, if you have any ideas for topics that you'd like me to cover on this podcast, please feel free to contact me via email at. Frank a Your Tech makeover.com. That's it for now. Thanks for listening to your tech makeover, if you haven't already. Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast on your favorite podcast platform so that you don't miss an episode.
00;15;25;24 - 00;15;47;25
Speaker 1
And if you're on Substack, make sure you subscribe to that newsletter so that you're alerted of content as I post it. You can always check out your Tech makeover.com, where you can see more information about each of my episodes. And if you want to find out more about me, please visit Bravo! It's until next time, I'm Frank Bravo, and this has been your technique over.