How to back-up iPhone photos without paying for iCloud

I love Apple for certain things, like my Macintosh computers, and I greatly prefer using an iPhone over using Android mobile devices. But there are some things from Apple that I truly do not like. For example, the “Photos” program that comes pre-loaded on Mac computers is absolutely terrible. Another example is iCloud.

I resent the idea of handing money over to Apple to store my personal photos. Why? They’re my photos and videos, they’re dear to me, and I want to be in complete control of them. I was able to figure out a way to back-up the personal photos and videos from my iPhone, and I’m going to show you how to do it.

Stuff you will need:

1. An Apple Macintosh computer
2. An external hard drive
3. Your iPhone
4. Your iPhone charging cable

Step 1:

Plug your iPhone into your Mac using your iPhone charging cable (with the power brick detached, of course). iTunes will probably launch after you plug it in. Close iTunes, because iTunes is terrible.

Step 2:

Open the application called Image Capture on your Mac. This program comes pre-installed on your computer. If you don’t know where to look for it, open the Finder on your Mac. You can open Finder by clicking on the icon in your dock that looks like this:

…then select Applications from the tabs on the left, then find Image Capture in the list, like this:

Step 3:

Your Mac may ask you to unlock your iPhone, do it. Your iPhone may ask you if this is a trusted computer, say yes. Once you have opened Image Capture, you may need to click on your iPhone on the left side of the program. You should see photos and videos that are inside of your iPhone displayed inside of Image Capture, like this:

Step 4:

If you haven’t plugged in and powered on your external hard drive yet, do that now. Why are we using an external drive instead of the built-in storage on your Mac? Because you don’t want to fill up your computer with these photos and videos. That would be bad. That would be another problem you would need to sort out. We are trying to do good things and avoid additional problems. So we are using an external drive.

Step 5:

Now you need to select the images that you want to back-up on your iPhone inside of the Image Capture program. When you click on a photo or video in Image Capture, it is highlighted in blue. After that, if you press the “command” key and the “A” key at the same time, all of the photos and videos are highlighted in blue. Do this if you want to back-up all of your images.

Step 6:

At the bottom of the Image Capture program, there is an area that says “Import To:”. If you click on the dropdown menu next to Import To, you will likely see options for Pictures, Desktop, Documents, Movies, Downloads, and more. Don’t select any of these. At the bottom there is an option called “Other.” Select it.

Step 7:

This opens up a new window inside of the Image Capture program. On the left side of this new window, you should see the name of your external drive. Click on it. Then select where you want to import the photos and videos from your iPhone in the external drive. You may want to make a new folder inside of your external drive to hold these photos and videos. That way you will be all organized and stuff. After you select where you want to put these files, click the “Choose” button in that new window.

Step 8:

After that you will return to the main view of the Image Capture program. The “Import To” section will now show the folder in your external drive where you want to save your photos and videos. Now you need to click the “Import” button that is just to the right of the “Import To” section. Click it!

Step 9:

Your photos and videos will now start getting copied from your iPhone to your external drive. Depending on how many photos and videos you have, it can take some time to complete. Walk away from your computer for a little while, and perhaps have a nice, little snack.

Okay, so, in a way you’re finished. But, I urge you… Don’t stop now! There are a few more important things you can do to be a truly responsible digital photo owning person.

How to Create a Bunch of Free Storage Space on Your iPhone

That title got your attention, right? Well, I’ll show you how to do that, but before we do that, you need to do something else first. You see, you’ve made one copy of the photos and videos from your iPhone on your external drive, but, the problem is that one is no good. What if that drive crashes? You can’t just assume that it won’t crash. That’s no way to live. There is no true sense of well being if you do that.

You need to make a duplicate copy of your external drive onto a second external drive. I know. It sounds crazy. It sounds absurd. But this is what you need to do. The good news is that there is a free software program that allows you do do exactly this. It’s called SuperDuper! and you can download it here.

Once you’ve downloaded SuperDuper! and made a back-up of your external drive with another external drive, you can go ahead and delete some photos and videos from your iPhone to free up some storage space. You can use the Image Capture app to do this in bulk. Here’s how:

Step 1:

Repeat steps 1 through 3 from the first part of this tutorial. Your iPhone should be plugged into your Mac, Image Capture should be running, and you should see the photos and videos from your iPhone inside of the Image Capture.

Step 2:

Highlight the photos and videos you want to delete by clicking on them in Image Capture. When you’ve highlighted the photos and videos you want to delete, hover your cursor on one of the photos and press the “Control” key at the exact same time as you click. A little menu should open up next to the cursor with a few options. Select “Delete items.” Boom. You are now deleting them from your iPhone in bulk.

Once again, you’re pretty much finished. But, there is one more thing. You’ve made two copies of your precious photos and videos on those two external drives, but what if your house burns down? Sorry to get all morbid, but it is something than can happen. If those drives get destroyed, or stolen, or whatever, then your photos and videos are gone. Forever. That’s no good.

In order to avoid this fate, what you need to do is to keep a copy of your photos and videos in the cloud. The best way to do this is to use a service called Backblaze. They charge $60 dollars a year to back up your entire Mac, and any external drives you have connected to it. I strongly suggest you do this.

Yes, I know the point of this article was to avoid paying Apple for iCloud, and at the end I strongly suggest you give some other company $60 a year. But, that’s reality. You’re either doing everything you can to safeguard your personal photos and videos, or you’re not. If you do it my way, you are doing it independent of Apple. You are in complete control of your images, not them. To me, this feels good for some reason. Perhaps it will for you, too.

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