Best way to back up 12,000 photos and videos?

Everything suggested above is good but personally I would get them printed and put into albums (the most precious ones at least if you don't want to do them all).

I pay £1.99 for a gazillion GBs of Google storage. My photos and videos automatically get backed up there. I can also choose whether I want to delete the image from just my phone or Google Photos as well.

Easy peasy. Much less faff than USB drives or external hard drives. Just keep your email (and back-up access) secure.

Google's (free) limit is 15GB which includes email and other services. There's nothing to stop you opening a second Google account just for your photos though.

I'd strongly recommend having at least two backups - more is better. Get a least one on a hard drive or USB stick at home, and then have a cloud backup service too.

Unfortunately free cloud services and good cloud services tend not to be one and the same thing. Expect to pay if you want to store more than a few gigabytes.

The old advice that "data you only have one copy of is data you don't care about" is true. Especially given how cheap USB storage is now. You can get a terabyte (1000 gigabyte) USB hard drive for £40, that's the reputable brands too.

Oh yes....i would also buy a couple of smaller USB sticks so they're completely separate....

So if zombie apocalypse happens you'd still have pics when in the bunker!

Personally I’d just copy them to a couple of different drives/usb sticks and leave it at that. Storage is cheap these days. A 16gb stick is barely more than the price of a cup of coffee.

Also, as for backing up as you go - yes to all of them (iCloud, Google Photos, OneDrive, DropBox, etc.). It should automatically backup your photos.

Once in a while, just open the app to make sure it's working properly. You might find that it only backs up when your phone is plugged in and connected to WiFi, to avoid draining your battery and data.

You can completely separate the two things by backing up everything to Google Photos, then stopping “Photos” app in your phone backing up to iCloud, checking everything is in Google, then delete on your phone.

Or you can keep them all on both, which is safer if you’re nervous.

Just make sure you do a test with a recent photo, so delete something and check where it’s deleted.

You can pay for more storage on Google, I think it’s about £2 a month.

Slightly unrelated but the Get Sorted app is brilliant for going through photos and deleting anything you don't need. I managed to get rid of thousands of photos that were duplicates or blurry etc. may make back up easier

Just had a look at Google Photos. It looks like that syncs to your device (your phone, if you've downloaded the app onto it). So if you delete something from your phone, it should delete it from the cloud too.

The help section says that it allows you to restore deleted files for up to 60 days (i.e. if you accidentally delete something or your phone gets wiped). You just go into the Google Photos app, go to "library" then go to "bin" and click "restore".

support.google.com/photos#topic=6128818

Looks like these are the costs for storage via Google One -

one.google.com/about/plans?hl=en_GB

iCloud is basically the best option if you want to be able to carry photos over to your future phones easily and see them easily through the iPhone gallery.

BUT it's not the best option if you want to keep the photos completely separate. That's why I use OneDrive as well :)

We have harddisks one at home and one at DH's job in case of a fire.

Be careful that your phone doesn't automatically sync with the storage...

A pal inadvertently did this... She took a whole load of pics of her phone storage... IPhone as it was getting full.... And so they were deleted off the storage too, and lost them

Google photos for me. It’s free and automatically syncs all the photos.

I go through it once a month and delete all the random screenshots and photos of the inside of my bag.

One day never I’ll sort them all into folders.

Dropbox - download the app and it will back up automatically- easily found on any computer - you can organise them into files, easily download them and share with others

I don’t understand or trust backups at all - sometimes I don’t understand the difference between upload and download !
Mine are backed up on my iCloud account. However friend of mine once lost a lot from iCloud (very possibly through her own fault or doing something silly). Because of this I also have all of mine backed up on usb memory drives - the photos vids themselves not just thumbnails or links.
I do this usb backup every few months. Each time I forget how I managed it so can’t help with details. Do know it’s become much more difficult to select and copy lots of photos at once than it used to be.

Really really important photos I also Email to myself. Eg last/favourite photos of parents and friends who have died.
This thread has reminded me I have voice mail messages from dead parents/friends. Not sure I ever want to listen to them but I think illogically I’d be upset if i lost them.
Good luck op.

I have an iPhone and use google photos. I don't like the format of images on iCloud.

I then periodically back up to an external hard drive as well.

Yes Google stores video too.

I have Dropbox. App sits on my phone and automatically backs up as I go. Photos on phone data, videos when connected to WiFi. I can then share specific photos with people too which is fab for nights out, children with grandparents etc.