5 free apps to save your photos online on iPhone and Android

Storing photos and videos on your smartphone is undoubtedly the best way to monopolize your device’s memory to the detriment of the rest. In fact, installing a new app or updating the device can quickly become a headache. However, there are many solutions that offer you to store all your photos online for free to free up space on your device, without giving up being able to access them.

Storing your photos on an online service is undoubtedly the best solution to allow you to have a backup of all your photos and to access them easily while preserving the storage of your device. In addition, some applications allowing to automatically save your photos online also offer to create intelligent albums, to obtain automatic video montages, or to rediscover your photos of the past years on each anniversary date. The editorial staff of Telechager.com has selected five free applications to save your photos online on iPhone and Android.

1. Google Photo

Announced in 2015 to replace Picasa, Google Photos quickly established itself among photo storage applications. And for good reason, Google Photos offers to store an unlimited number of photos and videos for free, provided they do not exceed 16 megapixels for photos and a definition of 1080p for videos.

In addition to the storage solution, Google Photos stands out from the competition by the many perks offered. The application handily replaces your usual photo gallery and incorporates a number of tools that will delight users uncomfortable with retouching (non-destructive) or editing tools. Google Photos indeed offers simple and intuitive editing tools, but also very good modules for creating albums and automated editing. The application is for example capable of generating gifs from your photos in bursts, or even of creating video montages grouping together the most important passages of each of your clips, all punctuated by music.

Google Photos also has very good search tools allowing you to easily find almost any photo from a place, an event, and even from an object thanks to the support of visual search. Add to that the Chromecast compatibility, the ability to easily share your photos with those around you, or to rediscover moments from the past via the “rediscover this day” module and you get an application that is difficult to match.

The +:
+ Unlimited storage
+ Automatic video and photo edits
+ Automatic backup of photos in the background

The – :
– Original resolution backup limited to space available on Google Drive

Download Google Photos for Android (Free)
Download Google Photos for iPhone (Free)

2. Flickr

Less comprehensive than Google Photos, Flickr focuses more on the aspect of saving and sharing your creations. The service allows you to store up to 1 TB of photos and videos for free on your Flickr camera roll. All content automatically downloaded from your smartphone’s backup module remains private but can be shared online at any time if you wish. The limitations imposed by Flickr remain very broad as to the maximum size of photos and videos uploaded online. It should not exceed 200 MB for images, and 1 GB for videos, playback for the latter being limited to the first three minutes.

Flickr also offers to organize your photos in albums to easily share them with your loved ones, but also to improve the rendering using the editing tools provided. You can adjust levels, change brightness, improve sharpness, perform color balance, and more. But Flickr has also thought about less seasoned users by integrating a magic wand tool capable of automatically improving the rendering of an image, as well as a whole series of predefined filters allowing to modify the overall rendering of your shots. Note that all changes made on Flickr are non-destructive and that you can go back at any time to retrieve your original image.

The +:
+ Almost unlimited storage (1 TB)
+ Integrated retouching tools
+ Automatic background backup

The – :
– Limitation of 3 minutes of viewing for videos
– Slow application

Download Flickr for Android (Free)
Download Flickr for iPhone (Free)

3. Shoebox

Shoebox is a storage service with a free offer that should appeal to as many people as possible. The application offers free and unlimited storage of your photos whose resolution does not exceed 10.6 megapixels, ie images not to exceed 3264 pixels in length. For videos, on the other hand, Shoebox is not as generous and limits, in its free version, the storage to 5 videos of 3 minutes in a maximum resolution of 1080p.

But Shoebox’s main strength against its competitors is undoubtedly its ability to secure content sent to the cloud using an encryption system, “the same as that used in the banking sector” according to explanations of the site.

Despite this, the application is less complete than Google Photos and Flickr, in particular because it does not offer any editing or retouching tools. If it is possible to view slideshows generated randomly according to particular places or times (Home tab) and to create albums, we regret a rather confused navigation in these two categories. The Home tab offers random slideshows with no real presentation logic, while the Explore tab shows an unlikely mix of all stored images.

Fortunately, Shoebox makes up for its great speed in uploading images to the cloud but also to its Timeline, a rather well-structured page that uses the film principle, offering to display all the images from the most recent to the oldest. per day, month or year.

The +:
+ Free unlimited storage for photos
+ Content secured by an encryption system
+ Speed ​​of backup

The – :
– Very limited video backup
– Lack of clarity in menus

Download Shoebox for Android (Free)
Download Shoebox for iPhone (Free)

4.Premium Photos from Amazon

Amazon’s Premium program has several virtues. In addition to allowing you to free yourself from delivery costs and benefit from a fast shipment on many products sold on the platform, the Amazon Premium program offers its members access to Amazon Prime Video, a VOD service. similar to Netflix, as well as partial access to the Amazon Drive storage service.

Indeed, Amazon Premium members (it is possible to try the service for free for 30 days), also have the possibility to save their documents online on the Amazon Drive storage service thanks to Amazon Premium Photos. 5 GB reserved for files of all kinds as well as videos are offered to members, while photos can be saved unlimitedly and without condition of size. Most image formats are recognized by the platform which does not impose any size or weight limit.

Unlike its competitors, Amazon’s Premium Photos does not offer any editing or retouching tools, or editing modules for videos. While Amazon’s Premium Photos primarily focuses on backing up and storing your photos, the app still allows users to create albums that can then be shared with loved ones.

The +:
+ Unlimited storage for photos regardless of size
+ Background photo backup
+ Simplicity of the interface

The – :
– Unlimited only for photos
– Maximum length of 20 minutes for videos and less than 2 GB
– No retouching or editing tools

Download Premium Photos from Amazon for Android (Free)
Download Premium Photos from Amazon for iPhone (Free)

5.hubiC

Offered by the French host OVH, hubiC is, like Amazon Drive, a storage service compatible with all types of files, and not just photos and videos. Offering 25 GB of free storage, hubiC has a mobile application capable of digging into your smartphone film to save your photos and videos online.

At the cost of a somewhat lengthy transfer process, it is possible to keep a copy of your images on the OVH cloud, while being able to access it from the hubiC file explorer. The application is limited to what is strictly necessary, namely data storage, and therefore ignores all the perks present in certain more specialized competitors. Exit, therefore, the possibility of retouching or cropping your images, or even being able to create a photo album. hubiC backs up your data, nothing more.

In the few functions offered by the application, we welcome the possibility of being able to protect access to the application by entering a secret code. However, we regret that the application is unable to send the images in the background on iOS. The application automatically stops data transfer as soon as it is closed.

The +:
+ Possibility to protect data access with a code

The – :
– Obligation to keep the application open to save
– Slow backup
– Global instability of the application

Download hubiC for Android (Free)
Download hubiC for iPhone (Free)

Verdict

Google Photos is arguably the most complete application. In addition to storing your photos and videos for free, it is able to automatically generate photo albums, collages or even video montages, without you having to have any special knowledge. The application also offers intelligent search functions, a manual or automatic editing module to retouch your images, or a function generating intelligent montages thanks to which you can rediscover past moments.