- Hey, guys.
Welcome to another Tip and Trick Tuesday.
Today, though, we need to talk about Apple and iCloud.
Is it just me or is Apple constantly trying
to get us to buy more iCloud storage?
And it probably makes sense.
I mean, if you got everybody just to pay
that 99 cents a month, like all of the iPhones and iPads
that are out there in the world,
for the smallest addition of iCloud storage,
Apple would make a crap ton of money.
Now there's a newer feature in iOS called
iCloud Photo Library,
and it's a big culprit in this now.
So, most people actually run out of their iCloud storage
just from backups, right.
So, just from having to backup your phone
and having multiple different iPhones,
and over time, we pretty much, most people,
run out of that storage already.
iCloud Photo Library adds to it in that it basically ...
The theory behind it is that it lets all of your devices,
your iPhone, your Mac OS devices, take all of their photos
and put them all up into iCloud so that you can access
them from all of them, and that's lovely and great.
The problem is, is that eats up
so much of the iCloud storage.
It's basically, if that feature is enabled,
you're guaranteed to run out
of the free storage quickly and easily.
Thankfully, there is a better way.
I suggest that you turn off iCloud Photo Library,
and instead use a free service like, say,
Google Photos that will back up an unlimited number
of your photos, and it will do it for no money at all.
And you can also access it on a bunch
of different devices, et cetera.
So, in order to do this, first, we're going to turn off
iCloud Photo Library by going to Settings,
tapping on Photos, then turn off iCloud Photo Library.
Next, we're going to get Google Photos.
So, we're going to go to the App Store,
search for and install Google Photos.
It is, again, free.
Once it's installed, you're going to log
into your Google account or create a free one
if you don't have one,
and tap the menu icon at the top left.
Then, you can tap the gear icon to get to Settings,
Tap Back up and sync,
Turn it on and leave high quality as the size.
Now, with that high quality setting, as opposed
to full resolution, you get unlimited backup and storage.
Now, if you do the full resolution, it gives you
a certain amount, and then you do eventually have to pay.
But here's the funny thing.
Google lists high quality as anything up to 16 megapixels.
The new iPhones, all of them, the 10, the 8, the 8 Plus,
they have 12 megapixel cameras.
So, all of your photos would fall under that category,
and they're all backed up for free at full resolution
because it's under the 16 megapixels.
Now, also on that same page, select when to back them up.
I have it set to cellular data
since I have a high-usage plan.
But you can set it to wifi if you want to conserve data.
Then go back to the main Google Photos page,
and tap on Assistant on the bottom left,
and it'll tell you how many photos it has to back up.
I highly recommend leaving this page open
and the phone plugged in for the initial sync
and then just opening the app once in a while
to make sure that it continues
to backup new photos and videos.
Now, you can also access any of these photos
on any device by either installing the Google Photos app
on that other device or by going
to photos.google.com and logging in.
Now, if you want to take this one step further,
and I recommend it, but it's up to you,
I would then also stop iCloud from backing up
any of my photos, as well.
I do this on all of my iOS devices.
I let it back up everything else, like the keychain,
Safari data, all that fun stuff, my contacts, all that
because it does a really good job of doing that.
But all of that takes up very little storage.
The thing that takes up most things,
and I mentioned this in another video I'll link below
if you want to check that out, is photos.
So, with Google Photos installed on a phone
and making sure that that's backing up all the time,
I no longer need this in iCloud, as well,
and this is a quick way to get a lot of that storage back.
To do that, head to Settings again, tap on your name,
tap on iCloud, then tap on Photos
and turn every option off.
Tap on Manage Storage so that we can remove the photos
from iCloud now, and tap on Photos in storage.
Tap Disable and Delete.
Read and confirm what it says,
and hit Back and check out how much more storage
that you now have.
And then change your iCloud plan back
to the free one and just rejoice.
There you go.
Of course, this may not be for everybody.
If you like some of those iCloud features,
obviously, you know, that's up to you,
and you don't mind paying for the iCloud service,
then that's also up to you.
But hope this helped some of you out
that don't really give a crap about iCloud
and just want to stop paying it
and have an unlimited backup source.
Google Photos is just awesome too, by the way.
You can search for everything
without ever having to tag anything,
It's pretty cool.
But that's it.
Hope it helped you guys.
Let me know in the comments below if it did
or other reasons why maybe you don't want to do this
and some people might need to know that.
I think it'd be good for other people to know
why you keep iCloud and pay for it or whatever.
Put that in the comments below.
Also, let me know what you think
about Tips and Tricks Tuesday.
It's a new thing I'm trying out,
so would love to hear your feedback on it.
And let me know if there are any tips and tricks
you'd like me to tackle.
Otherwise though, if you like this video,
please thumbs up it or share it.
Also, don't forget to subscribe.
All that is greatly appreciated.
And, as always, regardless,
thanks for watching.
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