ios offers a large storage space for free, but many people don't know about it.
Photo Backup#
A few days ago, a netizen wanted to back up their massive amount of photos and asked for recommendations for a free cloud storage service.
Although most cloud storage services strongly recommend their own photo backup feature, it's easy to upload photos but requires payment to download them.
Some seemingly free online photo storage services, such as Penguin Space or Moment Album, compress the image quality.
They even have censorship and the right to delete photos they are not satisfied with.
iOS Shared Albums#
So in the end, I recommended the built-in shared album feature on iOS. Many people don't even know about this feature, thinking that it either takes up local storage or iCloud space.
The official statement is that each person can create 200 shared albums, and each album can store 5000 photos or videos, calculated by quantity rather than capacity. They are stored in iCloud space but do not take up personal iCloud capacity. As long as you don't invite others, it remains your private album.
Based on the calculation of photos alone, with each photo being around 3MB, you can store 1 million photos, which is a capacity of 3TB. It's enough for many years of use. And it's free, without censorship, with only slight compression in image quality. So for those with limited capacity, you can put your photos in shared albums and delete them from the local album. Shared albums can still be accessed and viewed on other iOS devices.
Shared Gallery#
As a side note, iOS 16 has added a feature called Shared Gallery, which many people may not know about. It allows you to invite up to 5 people and takes up local space. It's only suitable for sharing some pictures among family members. Perhaps Apple has noticed that many people are taking advantage of shared albums, so they are preparing to patch it.
Now let's talk about the deep-rooted habits of some old friends. They may think that their phones are not secure or they may be afraid of losing them, so they always want to back up their photos to their computers. Personally, I suggest not wasting time on that. Your photos are stored in iCloud, which means they are in the cloud. As long as you remember your Apple ID, you can view your photos on any Apple device at any time.
Online Gallery#
Of course, if you are using Windows, I don't recommend using any file transfer tools. I recommend using the website public.photos. It can display the photos in your shared albums as a website, creating an online gallery. This allows you to easily view them on your PC and share them with others, without being restricted by the official limitations.
It's also very easy to use. First, log in to this website using the same Apple ID as your phone. Then click on "new album" and enter a name, for example, "666". Follow the prompts and open the Photos app, go to the album page, and click on the top left corner to create a shared album. Use the name provided by the website, "wuzhi.666", and click next. Paste the provided email address and wait for a minute or two to receive an email confirming your subscription to the shared album. After that, you can view the photos in your shared album on this website.