Want to backup your photos using iPhone, mac, or windows? Backing up photos to iCloud is essential. This article covers various methods and guides you on how to upload photos to iCloud without hassle.
If you are an iPhone user and a fanatic about taking photos and recording videos, you must have extra storage. It is always an excellent idea to backup files on iCloud, especially when using iPhone. You might quickly lose memories when anything happens to these photos and videos.
Fortunately, there is an iCloud account that can save you all the hassle and make the process effortless. The iCloud account backups up your files to the cloud and makes sure that your data is available on other devices when you sync the account.
Therefore, this article aims at guiding you through all the processes of uploading photos to iCloud using different devices, including the iPhone. iPhone has the best camera, which doubles the quality of your photo.
So, it is important when you understand the process of uploading your images directly to the cloud from your iPhone or any other device. Before going into details about the procedures, let us first look at what you have to do before uploading the photo to iCloud. Here we go.
What Should You Do before Uploading
Clean Up Your Photo Library
First of all, you should clean up the photo library. While it is good to back up all your files to the iCloud account, sometimes it does not worth keeping similar images on the account while wasting the storage at the same time. Therefore, it is an excellent move to clean up the photo library before starting to sync the iPhone.
Scan through the folder and remove any duplicate images that are not necessary. There are various ways to clean the photo library, and a good example is the use of Gemini photos. The software is readily available on the app store. you only need to download, install and follow these guides to remove duplicate images:
Step 1: Launch the Gemini photos application on your iPhone and start scanning.
Step 2: Click on the category option, e.g., similar the choose the event or date
Step 3: The software will group all similar images together, then go through them and choose the version to keep and separate from the one you need to delete.
Step 4: Click move to trash photos you do not wish to back up.
Step 5: Then after moving the photos to the trash, tap the trash to open and empty it to do away with them.
Step 6: Click delete, which confirms your action.
You have immediately identify the duplicate photos and then go to the photo library again. You can select other categories like blurred, screenshots, notes, etc. Gemini photo is a reliable software for cleaning up the photo library on your iPhone.
But that is not all; the deleted photos are still holding up on some spaces you need to free up. Therefore, head over to the photos app, click on the Recently deleted album, mark all the photos in this folder, and delete them.
Check iCloud Storage Space
after cleaning up the photo library, the second thing is to check the iCloud storage space. Therefore, before uploading the photos to the cloud, ensure that the iCloud account has enough storage to hold them back.
You need to know that, for all Apple devices, the company provides all users with a maximum of up to 5GB of free storage. Since the storage is limited, thus is advisable only to use it for automated iCloud backup services. The storage is ineffective in holding everything for you in iCloud.
However, there is always a workaround to that. Apple offers you an option to purchase extra storage to store all your data, including videos and photos, in the iCloud. They have a very affordable pricing plan that, with only $1.2 per month, you are guaranteed 50GB. This is enough storage for the backup. Now that you have storage, you can upload the photos to iCloud.
How to Upload Photos to iCloud on iPhone
There are two options to upload photos to the iCloud account when using iPhone. You can decide to upload a specific portion of photos or upload them all once. In this section, we will guide you through all the processes. Let us start with uploading all photos.
Upload All Photos
if you want to upload all your photos to iCloud automatically, you need to turn on iCloud. Thus, follow these steps to turn on iCloud and automatically upload all photos to the cloud:
Step 1: Head over to the phone icons and click on the settings; a cog icon found on your home screen
Step 2: Choose your name
Step 3: Click on the iCloud
Step 4: Click photos
Step 5: Then turn on iCloud photos. To know that the iCloud photos are turned on, the button next to the iCloud photo must turn green. Clicking on it changes the color.
Step 6: Then decide on how to store your files. select among the two options that are:-
- Optimizing iPhone storage:- the phone will store low-resolution images while having high-resolution files on iCloud. Note that you can only access these high-resolution photos once you have a network connection.
- The second option allows you to download all the files at full resolution. This needs more than enough storage on your iPhone.
Step 7: Then lastly, you must turn on the upload to my photostream option. If not changed, choose the slider and click on it to change it to green. This option allows your iPhone to upload all your photos to the cloud account. The process is automatic once you are connected to the network.
Upload Certain Photos
The above option involves uploading all the photos to iCloud. Sometimes, storage might limit you, and while economizing on it, you might only wish to upload specific images. This needs you to undergo extra steps. However, the safari browser on your iPhone makes this process very simple. Thus, you only need to follow these simple steps, and you will be done:
Step 1: Launch the Safari browser on your iPhone and visit the iCloud website.
Step 2: Then make sure that you log in using your Apple ID and password to access the iCloud account
Step 3: While on the photos tab, click on upload, then again click on the photo library
Step 4: Then choose the photos you need to upload to the iCloud. Once done, click on add button, and you are done. You can access these photos from any device as long as you sync the account with the device.
How to Upload Photos to iCloud from a PC
From Mac
Uploading photos to the iCloud account using a mac computer is simple. You only have to drag the photos to the photo library. Anything stored in the photo library is uploaded to the iCloud automatically. Thie involves different kinds of files besides photos. But bore doing anything, you must make sure that you turned the iCloud on. Therefore, use the guide below to help you turn iCloud on:
Step 1: Navigate through and open the photos application
Step 2: While on the menu bar; tap on the photos, which is an option located at the top left corner.
Step 3: Choose your preference
Step 4: Check on the box close to the iCloud photo, and tap on it.
Step 5: Then here, you must decide on how you want the photos stored. Optimize iPhone storage: as is the case with the previous section. You will be able to access low-resolution photos on your iPhone, but high-resolution images will be stored on the iCloud account.
This way, you must have a network connection to access them anytime. The second option you will have is to download while keeping orih=ginals. You can download all the files at full resolutions. However, it needs ample storage on your device.
From Windows
while apple products let you upload files to iCloud, you can also use a windows computer to upload photos to the cloud. But, it takes you extra steps. first, you have to download iCloud for Windows, then follow these steps:
Step 1: Using a browser of choice on your windows device, visit the Apple support center, download iCloud for Windows, and install.
Step 1: Then launch iCloud for Windows software on your computer
Step 2: After that, choose the options
Step 3: And choose the iCloud photo library
Step 4: Still, tap done
Step 5: And tap apply to set your selected preference
Step 6: Proceed to enable the iCloud photo library on the iOS gadget, allowing you to allow sync. At this point, you can also select the files you need to share and decide if you want to upload the images to the computer automatically. incase you do not want to go with the automatic process, then proceed with the below steps
Step 7: Launch the window explorer browser on the PC
Step 8: Then choose iCloud photos
Step 9: To choose to upload photos
Step 10: And then make selections of the photos you want to upload to the iCloud account.
Step 11: When you are done, click open.
Step 12: You can also use the drag and drop method. This is the easiest method as you only need to drop the photos to the upload folder directly on the iCloud.
How to Upload Photos to iCloud from icloud.com
Another situation might arise where you do not have time to go through the process of syncing your iCloud account to access the photos from other devices. Sometimes, you might be using someone's phone but only want to save a few shots to your iCloud. You can manage everything using a browser. regardless of the device you are using, follow these steps and backup your photos the icloud.com directly:
Step 1: Launch a browser of your choice and visit the icloud.com website
Step 2: Then log in using your apple id and password and access the cloud account
Step 3: Tap on photos, then click on upload
Step 4: The process will redirect you to the camera roll or where you saved the photos. Select the images you want to upload to your iCloud account, and when done, tap chooses to upload them to the cloud.
Why Your Photos Can't Uploading to iCloud
You might experience errors when trying to upload photos to iCloud. Many things can make your iCloud alive and improve its well-being. Here are some issues and possible solutions:
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Verify your Apple ID
make sure that your apple id and password are correct. And if this is not the case, renter them to log in to the account. To verify that you are using the correct credentials using your iPhone, head to the settings, click on apple ID, and confirm the name and email addresses displayed.
However, when using windows, launch iCloud for windows and check on the name and email addresses located under the logo. Therefore, ensure that you have enabled iCloud photos when using the same device.
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Check Icliud storage
Sometimes your photos might fail to upload to the iCloud account due to storage issues. You might be putting too much pressure on the storage when it cannot handle it. The storage might be low, and thus you will have to clear the contents. Therefore, on iPhone, go to the settings, click apple ID, then iCloud, and manage space.
Here, you will be able to see the storage space left. But on windows, you must first sign in to the account and check the storage-wise report. When storage is low, you might be opted to delete some data. When you tap on storage, you will be redirected to access all the files available to clean and have storage.
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Use a Stable network connection
When the network connection is not reliable, you might obviously have issues uploading the photos. And as such, iCloud might fail to joke around with you. Therefore, you need to work on your network connection. That ensures that your WIFI is stable and running smoothly. When you want to observe the quality of the network, there are simple steps you need to follow.
On iPhone, the connection quality is displayed on the upper part of the screen. You can equally access the control panel by swiping down the right-hand side. However, when using windows, tap on the wifi icon found at the right corner of your screen. You will be able to access the status of your network connection.
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Update the iOS or OS version
This tip applies to iPhone or windows users when everything is intact, but they cannot upload photos to the iCloud account. So, when using iPhone, click on the settings icon, tap general, then software update.
When there are available updates, kindly proceed to update them first. But if it is the OS, get a new and latest OS, then format the desktop. The diehard person can quickly restore the device to get the previous backup and check where the issue is.
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Try reconnecting to iCloud
The syncing glitches are some of the possible things to bring about mood swings on iCloud. When iCloud feels clumsy, be sure that you might take a lot of time on yourself. Then it is recommended to try to turn it off and on to see some improvements. The process also varies depending on the device you are using.
So, with iPhone, head to the settings, click on apple ID, then iCloud ad photos. Then from here, you can toggle the switch close to the iCloud photos. Turn off and then back on by clicking.
But when you are using windows, you have to use iCloud for the windows program. You will see the sign-out button located in the lower-left part when you launch the software. Immediately you click on it, you will be redirected to sign in again; enter the Apple ID and password to log in. It might help solve issues even though it sounds like a merry-go-round.
How Long Will It Take to Upload Photos to iCloud
The duration might take you to upload the photos to iCloud depends on two factors. First is the network connection speed. When you have a network with a low connection speed, then be sure that it might take you a long time to upload the photos to iCloud.
Also, when you have many photos you need to upload, expect to take to a longer time than expected with few photos. But something interesting is that you can check at the upload and pause anytime, then continue later.
With iPhone, go to the settings, click on your name, then iCloud, and photos. But still, you can open the photos app, then click on the photos tab at the bottom of it. You can tap to pause. When using a mac, head to the Photos app and tap on the photos located at the sidebar, tap on moments, and if not, tap photos on the toolbar and keep scrolling downward; you will see an option to pause the upload.
Conclusion
Uploading photos to iCloud are important. While it keeps your photos safe, you can still access them using any device from any region worldwide. Therefore, you can take many photos and store different files regardless of your phone's storage.
When your device is full, back up in iCloud and delete the files from the gadget. This is a great way to keep memories. The above guide has helped you upload photos to the iCloud account and access them anytime.
