How To Backup iPhone Photos on Mac

iPhone has a good quality camera, that’s why many people love to capture their moments with it. By the time, the more photos you store on your iPhone, the less free storage space you will have. When there’s no more space in your iPhone’s storage, you should backup photos from iPhone to your computer. There’re several ways to backup iPhone photos.

Apple provides iCloud Photo Library and Photos applications on Mac to make the backup photos from iPhone much easier. This is the Apple’s way to backup and sync photos from all iOS devices and Mac with ease. This method is for iPhone with iOS 8.3 or later and Mac OS X 10.10.3 or later.

The First Thing You Should Do Is: Update The iOS and OS X

  • I suggest you to update the iOS on your iPhone to the latest version. Go to Settings >> General >> Software Update.
  • Update the OS X on your Mac. Go to Apple menu >> App Store. On the tab update, you can find the latest update recommendation from Apple.

Note: both things above are optional. The minimum requirement is iOS 8.3 and OS X 10.10.3. If you didn’t have these configuration and you feel like don’t want to update, you can try the manual method that I will explain at the end.

Sign In To iCloud

  • Sign in the Apple ID on iCloud settings on iPhone. Go to Settings >> iCloud
  • Sign in the Apple ID on iCloud settings on OS X. Go to System Preferences >> iCloud

Turn On iCloud Photo Library

  • Make sure the iCloud Photo Library settings on iPhone is activated. Go to Settings >> iCloud >> Photos, swipe on iCloud Photo Library
  • Make sure the iCloud Photo Library settings on Mac is activated. Go to Photos >> Preferences >> iCloud, check iCloud Photo Library

Buy iCloud Storage Plan If You Need It

You already have 5GB iCloud storage for free and I think it will not be enough. You can buy iCloud Storage Plan as you need. At this moment, Apple has changed their iCloud Storage Plan with the new price list, for US region the options are:

50 GB: $0.99
200 GB: $2.99
1 TB: $9.99

You can check the iCloud storage plan in each country through this link. To upgrade the iCloud storage, you can follow the steps below:

On the iPhone:

  • Go to Settings >> iCloud >> Storage
  • Tap Buy More Storage or Change Storage Plan
  • Choose and upgrade, then tap Buy and enter your Apple ID password

On Mac

  •  Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, then click iCloud.
  • Click Manage in the lower-right corner.
  • Click Buy More Storage or Change Storage Plan.
  • Choose an upgrade, then click Next and enter your Apple ID password.

Let’s The Backup And Sync Are Automatically Proceed

The iCloud Photo Library will backup photos and videos from Camera Roll by uploading automatically, if you connect it to the Internet with Wi-Fi and your battery is charged. Your albums and photos will be synced in your iOS devices and Mac automatically.

All photos will be stored on the iCloud , and if something bad happens to your iPhone or Mac, you will still have your photos stored on the iCloud. Besides the Photos app on your iPhone or Mac, you can also access it via icloud.com.

Photos on iCloud

Photos on iCloud

This is the best way to backup, not only all will be synced, but your photos will be safe. You don’t have to do a manual backup. It takes time. The disadvantage of the iCloud is, you need a fast Internet, so that you can upload and download it without any hassle.

How To Save The Space On Your Device

By default, the iCloud Photo Library will automatically upload and download your photos and videos to all devices. But, what if your device doesn’t have enough space on its storage? Apple provides the other option in this case, and that is activating the Optimize Storage on iOS devices or Mac, so the iCloud Photo Library will automatically manage the size of your library on your device, thus you can make the most of your device’s storage. All of your original, full-resolution photos and videos are stored in the iCloud while device-size versions are kept on your device. You can download the original photos and videos over Wi-Fi or cellular when you need them.

To Activate The Optimize Storage:

On your iPhone: tap Settings >> iCloud >> Photos or Settings >> Photos & Camera, then swipe on Optimize iPhone Storage

On your Mac, click Photos > Preferences > iCloud, then check Optimize Mac Storage

How If You Cannot Deal With This?

If you are looking for the other option, you can try this simple way:

On Mac, you can use the Image Capture Application

  • Launch Image Capture
  • Connect your iPhone
  • All photos on Camera Roll will be in that application
Image Capture

Image Capture

  • You can import all or import some photos and choose where you want to store the photos.

Read also: How To Use Android Device Manager on PC

Join our newsletter

Subscribe to our newsletter and never miss out on what's happening in the tech world. It's that simple.
subsc

🚀 Trusted source for tech since 2012