Jim Rossman: What to do when your cloud storage is full?

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I got a question from a friend last week who received an email message from Apple about his iPhone.

The message read, “Your iCloud storage is full. Because you’ve exceeded your storage plan, your documents, contacts and device data are no longer backing up to iCloud and your photos and videos are not uploading to iCloud Photos. To continue using these services, you need to upgrade to iCloud+ or reduce the amount of storage you are using.”

You hear it all the time.

“You need to back up your phone.”

Apple makes it easy for iPhone users. Android users can back up to Google One just as easily.

When you set up an iPhone, you have the option to sign in with an Apple ID. When you set up an Apple ID, that is also your iCloud login for Apple’s cloud services, which includes backing up some or all of the data on your iOS devices.

Apple includes 5 gigabytes of storage free with every iCloud account. Google is a bit more generous and includes 15GB for free.

These cloud services are great for backing up things like your text messages, contacts, application data and especially your photos and videos.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out phones these days have at least 64GB of onboard storage and may now have 128GB or 256GB and some can have 512GB or even more.

And as the camera sensors get bigger, and video can now be captured in 4K, you can fill up the free storage very quickly.

The question is: Do you really need to be backing up everything?

The answer is no. You can pick and choose what you feel is important enough to back up to the cloud. You can even choose not to use cloud backup at all, but it is very convenient.

Every time I set up a new phone, logging into my iCloud account and watching the pictures appear from my backup is like magic.

But eventually, most of us will find the need for more cloud storage, as our phones are our only cameras.

Apple and Google will be happy to sell you more space in their clouds. The cheapest plan includes 50GB for 99 cents per month. I am on Apple’s 200GB plan for $2.99 per month. The next step up is 2 terabytes for $9.99 per month.

Google offers similar cloud storage upgrades and prices.

Also, just because you have an iPhone, you are not tied to just Apple for cloud storage. If you want to use Google to back up your iPhone’s photos, it is easy to set that up.

I should mention that cloud storage is not your only option for backing up your phone. Periodically connecting it via USB cable to your computer will allow you to back up to your PC or Mac’s hard drive.