Automatic backup: how to never lose your phone photos and files

Why set up automatic backup

Phones get dropped in the pool, left in an Uber, stolen at a concert or simply stop turning on. Without a backup, the photos of your kids, your vacation and every screenshot of an important document go with them, for good. Setting up an automatic backup once means you never have to remember to do it by hand.

Read also: Two-factor authentication: why to turn it on for every important account and Phone storage full: what you can safely delete.

How to turn it on for iPhone and Android

iPhone: go to Settings, tap your name, then iCloud. Turn on iCloud Photos to keep your library in the cloud, and turn on iCloud Backup to save the rest of the phone, such as app data, settings and messages. Backups run when the phone is locked, charging and on Wi-Fi.

Android: open Google Photos, tap your profile picture, then Photos settings and Backup, and turn it on. For the rest of the phone, look for Google One backup or Backup in the system settings; the exact menu varies by brand, especially on Samsung phones.

Source: Apple Support, What does iCloud back up?; Google Photos Help, Back up photos and videos.

Mind the free storage limit

Free cloud plans fill up fast. Apple gives 5 GB with every Apple ID and Google gives 15 GB shared across Gmail, Drive and Photos, which a few years of video can use up. When storage runs out, the backup silently stops. Check how much space you have left, and set the backup to upload only on Wi-Fi so it does not eat into your data plan.

The 3-2-1 rule, in plain English

IT professionals sum up backup in one simple rule: 3 copies of your important files, on 2 different types of storage, with 1 of them kept off-site.

At home, that looks like this: the photos on your phone (copy 1), the automatic cloud backup (copy 2, off-site) and a copy every few months on an external drive or a computer (copy 3, different storage). That way, neither a stolen phone nor a cloud account problem can take everything at once.

Syncing is not the same as backing up

This is the mix-up that costs people the most files. In a synced folder, whatever you delete on your phone also disappears from the cloud, and a corrupted file is copied corrupted. A true backup keeps versions and lets you go back in time.

That is why the cloud trash matters: iCloud and Google Photos keep deleted items for a period of time, usually 30 to 60 days, and that is where you rescue the photo you deleted by accident. An offline copy on an external drive also protects you from ransomware, which can lock or encrypt everything that is connected.

The test almost nobody runs

A backup you have never tested is a hope, not a plan. Once a quarter, take five minutes to:

• open your cloud account on another device and check that recent photos are there;
• restore any file and make sure it opens;
• confirm automatic backup is still on and has not stopped for lack of space;
• write down where your account recovery codes are kept.

See also what you can safely delete when your phone storage is full.