Q&A: My iPhone Storage is Full--What now?
This is why I hate iCloud
Question from a viewer who has run out of room on his iPhone 14. “My phone cannot update until I free up some space. But I remember you saying that if I delete pics on the phone that they will automatically be deleted in iCloud as well. Can you set me straight?”
Thanks Craig for the question, and this is sadly very true. Apple has designed what most people think of as a backup system, when in reality, it’s just a mirror of your Apple devices.
Snap a photo on your iPhone, and it gets stored in iCloud, where it can now be seen on your Mac computer and iPad as well.
This sounds great in theory, until you get to the part about Apple saying they will delete your photos from iCloud when you run out of room, which you will, on a device and kill the photo there. Kill it on the iPhone or iPad, and it says sayonara to iCloud too.
The solution for Craig, and anyone else in this situation is very simple. Download every photo and video that’s stored on iCloud to the computer and then copy them to a hard drive.
Once this is done and you’ve got your images in your posession, you can now delete images from the phone or iCloud, to make room.
To be fair, iCloud wasn’t designed for people like me who take 1000s of images, but the average iPhone user, and that’s fine. Every image is (hopefully) copied to the cloud after you snap it, meaning there is no cumbersome upload process to get them off your phone, and the same image is now on your Mac and iPad as well.
However, for the traveling pro, hotel wi-fi can be notoriously slow, sometimes files never make the move from the phone to the cloud, and it’s not really a backup, even though many people think it is. The whole deleting photos thing makes that clear.
Which brings us back to the hard drive.
I’ll give you two choices on drives.
LaCie makes the “Rugged” brand of drives, a traditional spinning disk hard drive with 2 terabytes of storage, and it sells for just over $100.
The Samsung T7 line is more reliable over the long term, as it has no moving parts, but the prices of what are known as solid state drives have doubled or even tripled in the last year. This T7, which I own and swear by, sells for $289.
If it were me, I’d buy two of the LaCie drives, and put your photo collection on both of them, for safe keeping.
Then, I would backup the photos online somewhere other than iCloud.
I know this sounds cumerbsome, but it’s a whole lot better than Apple deleting your precious memories!
So where to backup online?
If you’re an Amazon Prime member, the Amazon Photos app has free unlimited storage. If nothing else, Amazon Photos is going to be a much better home for your photos than iCloud, as it won’t be deleting them. (You can have all your photos automatically uploaded to Amazon Photos from your phone, just like with iCloud.) Negative: uploaded photos are free, videos are an extra charge.
The cost of Prime is $139 a year (which also includes entertainment and speedier shipping) vs. iCloud’s $120 a year for 2 terabytes of storage. (iCloud also comes with a free tier for 5 GB of storage—I go through 5 GB in an afternoon. It’s an unreasonable offering for anyone who takes photos and videos on a phone that shoots now in higher resolution, larger files.)
Other alternatives?
Microsoft OneDrive is $99 yearly for 1 TB of storage. It doesn’t delete your photos.
Google Photos is $120 yearly for 2 TB of storage, but buyer beware—this also includes having a larger inbox for your Gmail and the Google Drive virtual hard drive storage. If you upload too many photos or videos, you’ll get nag messages saying that you can’t read or reply to any e-mails, because your Google Photos storage is too big.
Dropbox is $9.99 monthly for 2 terabytes, without the worry about e-mail boxes overloading or photos being deleted. And yes, there’s an app to upload everything directly from your phone.
A quick reminder about the 3-2-1 backup rule. Your images should be in 3 places, backed up to two hard drives, one held at home and the other placed remotely at a friend or relative’s house, and also online somewhere.
The Skinny on Solid State Drives and AI
You may have missed this, but the thirst for AI memory chips have played hacov with our access to solid state drives. That’s why the prices have ballooned in recent months.
Petapixel has a very perceptive article about it. The cost of the memory “is finite and being largely consumed by enterprise companies looking to expand AI data centers,” reports PetaPixel. These data centers need storage for two reasons: one, they need more data storage to reference and train large language models, and two, they need more RAM to operate. The longer a conversation with an AI chatbot, the more memory is required to access earlier parts of that conversation.”
More bad news: “Even when the AI bubble bursts — and it will burst — prices won’t immediately fall. It’ll take years for that to happen since contracts to purchase all these products have already been signed.”
So even though many of us have turned to Solid State Drives, because of the reliability factor, I think cost is bringing us back to spinning discs. Just be sure to buy two of the drives, and backup everything to both of them please.
Geeky Gadgets and Phone Photo Tips
The Geeky Gadgets website has a new article full of photo tips for iPhone users. I may not agree with them all, but here a few of their suggestions. And I’ve added the Android options as well.
Enable Composition Tools: Activate the grid and level tools to enhance framing and alignment, particularly for landscapes or architectural photography. VERY IMPORTANT, mostly for making sure your horizons are in check. Android phones have similar tools.
Preserve Settings: Save your preferred camera configurations, such as filters and exposure adjustments, to maintain consistency across sessions. Again, very important. Make the changes now in Menu, Camera, Preserve Settings. On Android phones, this is done in Settings as well.
Use Burst Mode: This feature is ideal for action shots, as it captures multiple frames in quick succession, allowing you to select the best image. You can access burst mode by clicking the top volume button on the side of the phone. (On Samsung Galaxy phones, swipe the shutter button down to get this feature, on Google Pixel phones, hold the shutter button.)
Try Vertical Panoramas: For tall subjects like skyscrapers or trees, switch to panorama mode and shoot vertically to create a high-resolution image. Great for the Eiffel Tower and Statue of Liberty.
NEW GOOGLE PIXEL
The Google Pixel 10A phone was announced this week, and if you’re unfamiliar with the “A” series of Google phone, they are the lower-priced, more affordable handsets from Google, starting at $499.
There’s. very little difference between last year’s 9A and the new 10A, except that Google says it has improved battery life, and will offer two software features not available on the 9A, Auto Best Take which “helps make sure everyone in a group photo looks their best with a single shutter press” and Camera Coach which offers step-by-step guidance on lighting and composition. Samsung is scheduled to introduce its newest, the Galaxy S26 lineup of phones, Wednesday. The Pixel will be in stores on March 5.
We get around—where am I here? 
Road Tales: what’s wrong with the above photo?
Meanwhile, questions about hard drives, online backup, the breakfasts of champions? I’m all ears—hit reply and let’s hear from you. Meanwhile, we’re off to Savannah, GA and St, Augustine, Florida this week—wave at me if you’re there too! And on Sunday’s Photowalks episode on Scripps, we’ve got our half-hour deep dive on the Hollywood Sign. Look for it Sunday at 10 a.m. ET. Enjoy!
Jeff