[Tips and Tricks] How to never lose your photos

Smartphones and other portable devices have become inseparable from our daily routine, and therefore it is vital to be cognisant of the all the important data on your phone; especially all your precious photos. It takes only one unfortunate incident -- like a fall or a theft -- for you to lose years and years worth of photos you've been carefully saving.However, it is quite easy to ensure the safety of your photos by automatically backing them up daily. Let's have a look at a few ways through which you can do so. 

Google Photos

Download: Android, iOS, Web
According to us, Google Photos is hands-down the best choice for backing up your photos and videos. It is simple to use, feature-rich, comes pre-installed on most Android devices and offers automatic photo backup to an unlimited, free cloud storage linked to your Google Drive account.

Do note that the free, unlimited storage remains so only if you let Google down-sample your images to a reduced file size using its very own algoritm. Google Photos recommends you select the “high quality” storage option if most of your photos with a phone or camera are under 16 megapixels in size, which works out well for most users out there. Users can choose to upload their data only through a Wi-Fi connection in case their mobile data plan is metered, and the content remains private, until actively shared by the asset owners. 

Google Photos offers useful tools like a few basic editing and sharing options; grouping photos and videos into collections; and smart searching using machine learning. The “assistant” automatically creates fun projects with your images, such as slideshows, collages, and animations. Moreover, you can access your stored photos from almost any device, not just Android.

To enable the automatic media backup feature, follow these simple steps:

1. Open the Google Photos app on your mobile device .
2. At the top left, tap the Menu button.
3. Select Settings > Back up & sync.
4. At the top, switch it on or off.

Apart from Google's offering, you may also consider apps with similar functionality such as Microsoft OneDrive (Android, iOS, Web), Shoebox Photo Backup (Android, iOS, Web) and G Cloud Backup (Android, iOS, Web). 

AirDroid

Download: Android, Web
While cloud storage based services like the ones mentioned above are the prominent choice for retaining backups, we do sometimes feel the need to keep our data to ourselves, on our local network and drives. Especially for critical data, it might not be a good idea to rely solely on a single service.

AirDroid solves this dilemma, with its immensely powerful desktop and mobile applications that connect over the local Wi-Fi network to sync data. The application offers a dedicated backup feature that transfers media through your local network and saves it to your own computer. The developers claim that no media passes through their servers in this process. The network speeds are no longer a bottleneck, as the transfer takes place over Wi-Fi.

With automatic backup option on, AirDroid will start backup your new photos automatically when the phone battery level is higher than 40%. To save battery, you can also turn on the option of “Only when charging”, to start backup only when the phone is being charged. 

Now that you have read about the different ways in which you can save your precious photos from getting lost, which one will you use? Let us know which one will you use.