Last week the girls were doing something that made me grab my phone so I could capture it. I opened up my camera app and got the dreaded ‘this phone cannot take a picture. There is not enough storage’. Ugggh!
This was partly my fault because I got the warning several times daily for about a week. And I really don’t delete photos on my phone, but I decided to ignore all those warnings.
So, how do I fix my phone photo storage problem? I do two things, because when it comes to my photos I believe in redundancy. I never want to lose them.
Fix #1
Amazon Photo – I knew Amazon prime members have free unlimited storage, I just never got around to putting it on my phone. Now, I have it and love it.
1. It backs up my phone photos to Amazon’s photo cloud storage. Once you have it downloaded to your phone, go into the app and press on the little hamburger icon.
2. Click on Add photos.
3. Then click on where you want Amazon to back up from (it gives options for your albums on your phone, instagram, dropbox etc.) I choose Camera Roll then select the photos I want (which is usually all of them) by dragging my finger across the screen.
4. Then click save and it does its business! Warning – if you have tons of photos this will take a little while. If you have a prime account with Amazon you get unlimited storage for free, which is awesome!
Fix #2
This is more detailed, but I also like to organize all of my photos on my computer (which is also backed up in 2 other ways) so I know I’ll never lose those precious memories. Or the terrible photo I took of the ground accidentally. Here’s my process, for the most part it’s automatic, but does take a little organizational work which I need/like. I’ve done this in the past, but I never deleted the photos off my phone.
1. Download the Carousel and Dropbox apps on your phone, if you don’t already have them. Both are free!
2. I go in and open carousel once a month. You should see the option of timeline and when clicked on that every date you took a photo and the photos. Mine automatically start uploading to Dropbox. If this is your first time you will need to set it up with your Dropbox account, and you may need to select the photos by clicking on the little check mark to the right and sharing them. It’s been awhile since I first set it up. Otherwise, once set up then it is automatic and very little to do. You can also create albums and sync that way as well.
3. I go into Dropbox on my computer and download the pictures from that month to a file I have on my computer for all of my photos from that month. Doneso! That’s it.
4. Of course, then delete them out of Dropbox and don’t forget to delete from your phone! No more horrid message saying I can’t take a picture right when I need to.
Added note: My phone doesn’t delete them right away but puts them in a delete folder and 30 days later it is automatically deleted. You may find your phone does the same. If you need to free up space right away go into the deleted folder and delete those as well.
Now all of my photos are in two clouds (Amazon and my other back up cloud), on my computer, and on an external hard drive. Hopefully that really means they are safe. Now I only need to print them all!
Know of any other free ways to back up those phone photos?