While you can buy a new phone afterwards, but you can’t get back all those beautiful memories that you had captured on your phone. This is why you should consider backing up the photos and videos on your smartphone.
When it comes to this, nothing is more convenient than taking a photo and have it automatically backed up to the cloud, so that you won’t lose them even if your phone gets lost or stolen. If you have an Android phone and don’t mind trusting your photos to the web, these three apps will do their part to make sure your memories are safe and sound.
Google+
Don’t let the social network scare you; Google+ can automatically back up an unlimited number of photos online, even if you never intend to share them. You can also automatically fine-tune your photos with effects such as red-eye reduction and color balance, and create animated gifs out of a quick sequence of images. (Don’t worry; you can disable these features as well.)
To get set up, just install the Google+ app on your phone. You should see a prompt to set up auto-backups when you first run the app, but you can also manually turn on that feature through Settings > Auto Backup.
Dropbox
Dropbox is the other cloud storage provider that often comes pre-installed on some Android devices. When you first launch the app, it gives you the option to instantly save your pictures. Doing so will upload them to a folder labeled “Camera Uploads” inside your Dropbox.
Alternatively, you can install Carousel, a gallery app for viewing photos saved in Dropbox. It stores images in the same place as the main app, but it provides a better interface for browsing through them.
Flickr
Flickr (iOS, Android) has long been the photographer’s online friend. A website, unlike Facebook, that does not believe in compressing images but in showing them off in their most truest forms. With Flickr you get a community of passionate photographers and 1TB of storage.
Now, with their new Flickr 3.0 app you can use it to automatically upload any new picture or video from the camera in complete glory and utilize that 1 TB storage that can hold about 500,000 images taken from your smartphone. And all the uploads are set to private so you don’t need to worry about privacy concerns.
Amazon Cloud Drive Photos
When Amazon launched the Kindle Fire and the Amazon Appstore, I thought it had a really good chance of taking Android’s supremacy from Google. Amazon Cloud Drive Photos makes me rethink that. Not only does it have a needlessly long name, it still has the outdated Android 2.3 Gingerbread styling. It just seems like Amazon isn’t making the effort to make this a competitive app, even though it could if it wanted to.
Now don’t get me wrong, if you’re tied into the Amazon ecosystem already, this app could work great. You get 5GB of free storage, which is more than Dropbox offers, and functionally it behaves very well. I just wish that they would update the user interface and maybe update it to support more than just photos, making it a full on Google Drive competitor.
There is also a desktop version and browser version of the Amazon Cloud Drive, both of which support all kinds of file types, not just photos. Visually and functionally it is very similar to both Google Drive and SkyDrive, except that its Android app only works with photos.
SugarSync
SugarSync (100 GB for 74.99 $/year) is a popular desktop backup solution and my primary online backup and cloud storage provider. The Android version is similar in look and feel to the desktop version, which was recently revamped for the 2.0 release. It allows photo and video backup (separately), photo optimization and more. You can select individual files to sync to device, effectively giving offline access to those items. I’m still testing the SugarSync Android client but so far, it seems useful. I particularly liked the ability to sort items by date modified which makes it easy to check that sync is up to date and working well.
OneDrive
Microsoft's cloud storage solution offers a similar back-up method to Dropbox. Just like Dropbox, you can set OneDrive to only upload photos over Wi-Fi. Also like Dropbox, Microsoft will give you 3GB of free additional storage if you configure the OneDrive mobile app to automatically save photos to the cloud, bolstering the service's 7GB of free storage.
Windows 8 has SkyDrive/OneDrive baked in by default, making the mobile OneDrive app's automatic uploads a dead-simple way to ensure your phone photos wind up on your PC. Set up OneDrive's camera uploads by going to Settings > Camera backup.
You may have to set OneDrive to automatically download your camera backup folder to your PC itself. By default, OneDrive folders are viewable on the desktop but aren't actually downloaded to your hard drive in Windows 8.1.
SkyDrive
Since I have a SkyDrive (100 GB for 23.88 $/year) account, I figured it couldn’t hurt to have the Android client, but I’m not particularly impressed. While it means I can get access to files stored on SkyDrive when I have a connection, I couldn’t find settings for automatic upload or offline access, so I don’t use it much. I don’t use the desktop version much either, but for the one time in a million when I need something stored on SkyDrive, it’s there
Shoebox
The Shoebox photo backup and cloud storage provides unlimited storage for your photos, but there’s a catch. The free plan stores resized images — up to 1,024 pixels on the longest side — while the $5-a-month Pro plan lets you upload full-resolution copies of your photos.
When you first launch the app, Shoebox touts its privacy and security and offers to start syncing your photos. Like Flickr, Shoebox does not let you upload videos. It addition to its generous storage options, Shoebox is a versatile photo viewer. In addition to the standard chronological view, Shoebox lets you search by season, day, time, and camera, among others. It also provides an easy download button for your backups, which is a simple function either lacking or obscured with other photo backup apps.
Which Android Backup App is Best?
So what’s the verdict? Which Android backup client works best? While this isn’t a comprehensive survey, my money is currently on Dropbox, because of the easy, quick upload and easy offline access.
Now, I know what you’re thinking – what about backup for the phone’s data itself? I’m still working on finding the perfect solution, and I’ll be sure to let you know when I find a great online backup solution for Android phones and tablets. Watch this space!