☁️ Cloud Photo Backup: iCloud vs Google Photos vs Amazon Photos
September 15, 2026
Cloud photo backup is the difference between "my photos are on my phone" and "my photos are safe." Most of us assume we are in the second group, and most of us are not. In this episode of Your Tech Makeover, Frank Bravo explains the distinction that clears up everything else, compares iCloud, Google Photos, and Amazon Photos, and gives you a short checklist to get this settled before the holiday photo season.
Synced is not the same as backed up
A photo can be in one of three states, and we use a single word for all of them. On your phone means it exists in exactly one place, and that place gets dropped, left in restaurants, and taken to the beach. Synced means your phone and a service are keeping a matching set, which is a real improvement, but syncing runs in both directions, so deleting a photo on your phone removes it from the service too. Backed up means there is a second copy that does not vanish because something happened to the first one. It survives the lake, and it survives the accidental delete. Most people are in the middle state and believe they are in the third.
Why the free photo storage tiers run out
Apple gives you 5 GB of free iCloud storage, shared with other Apple services, and a modern phone can shoot past that with video in one afternoon at a soccer game. Google gives you 15 GB, but it is shared across Google Photos, Gmail, and Google Drive, so a long-held email account may already have spent most of it. Amazon gives you 5 GB as well. These numbers are not accidental. Free storage is sized to get your photos flowing in automatically and to run out eventually. The paid plans are reasonable: roughly $3 a month for a couple hundred gigabytes, and about $10 a month for two terabytes, which is an enormous amount of family photos.
iCloud vs Google Photos vs Amazon Photos
The useful question is not which service is best, it is which one fits the devices you already own.
- iCloud asks almost nothing of you. If the household is iPhones, iPads, and Macs, turn on iCloud Photos and it simply keeps working. Add one Android phone and it becomes the wrong choice.
- Google Photos is the pick for a mixed household, and the obvious answer if anyone is on Android. It also works well on an iPhone, which people overlook. If you are already in the Google world, you have an account waiting.
- Amazon Photos is the surprise. Prime members get unlimited full-resolution photo storage at no extra cost, not compressed or shrunk down. The catch is significant: unlimited covers photos only, and video still counts against the 5 GB free tier.
Search in all three has gotten very good. Type "beach" or "birthday cake" or a person's name and you will find pictures from eleven years ago. For a large, disorganized library, that search may be worth more than the storage.
Pick one service, then verify it
The worst outcome is half-using two or three services, with some pictures in iCloud, some pulled into Google by an old phone, and no clear idea where anything lives. Pick one, fully turn it on, and buy enough storage. If several people in an Apple household each pay for a small plan, look at Family Sharing on the two terabyte tier instead.
Then confirm it worked. The first upload on a big library can take days, so open the service on another device and look for your recent pictures. If you can see them somewhere that is not your phone, you are done.
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