Apple cloud backup service?

JustAnotherSaver

If memory serves, you got 5GB for free with your Apple account? But you can buy more.

Question is, can this extra capacity purchase be split between different people?

So say you buy their 200GB option, can that only be for your user ID or could you share that 200GB with other people? Obviously there's only one account making the payment so that side of it will be you having to split the cash if that's what you decide but as far as splitting the capacity goes - can this be done?

[Deleted User]

Yes, the 200GB and 2TB options can be shared with your family.

Sandtree

Larger options can.

Not all things actually use capacity so make sure you know what you need, for example photos or videos in Photo don’t consume capacity 

JustAnotherSaver

Sandtree said:

Larger options can.

Not all things actually use capacity so make sure you know what you need, for example photos or videos in Photo don’t consume capacity 

So you could have a 128GB iPhone and to set it up standard with some basic apps for arguments sake leaves you with 100GB free space for easy rounding. I'm just plucking a number out of the sky here so stick with it.

Of that 100GB free space, let's say 90GB is used up with photos and videos. Again for easy rounding it's a 50/50 split with photos and videos.

So if i'm understanding right, not a single bit of your allowance is used up  on photos and videos? So you can basically back up the entire 90GB for 'free' and it is only other things (i imagine apps, settings, notes, music etc etc) that use up space?

duncansby

I'm not sure that's correct.  You chose what you want to store in the iCloud, for example my photos and videos account for over 17G of my total storage.  You don't have to back up your photos but I would have thought they would be essential 

JustAnotherSaver

duncansby said:

I'm not sure that's correct.  You chose what you want to store in the iCloud, for example my photos and videos account for over 17G of my total storage.  You don't have to back up your photos but I would have thought they would be essential 

That was my understanding of it also.

Which makes me think i've misunderstood Sandtree more than Sandtree being incorrect. I wouldn't have thought you'd get unlimited photo & video backup allowance since this is likely to be the majority of peoples backups and therefore what will gain Apple most money out of the backup process.

Back on the topic of sharing though - how exactly does that work?

So say you have 3 people. Person 1 pays for an additional 200GB storage and their apple ID is joebloggs@something.com

How do person 2 & 3 back up to person 1s 200GB account?

duncansby

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201088
Hi - easiest to follow official Apple instructions 

bobfredbob

Photos and videos definitely come out of your allowance.  If you and your family upload the same photo each on family sharing, then I think it also counts twice against your quota.  However, "Shared Albums" (not "Family Sharing") doesn't count against your quota at all, but uses a lower quality image/video and has a few other limitations such as no face recognition and no means of sorting.

I'll be pedantic and warn you that iCloud isn't technically a "backup", it's just storage.  So if you use it for photos and delete the photo then it will delete it across all your devices and you can't restore it (once it leaves the "Recently Deleted" folder).  You can periodically download your images from iCloud to your computer so you then have several copies just in case.

duncansby

bobfredbob said:

Photos and videos definitely come out of your allowance.  If you and your family upload the same photo each on family sharing, then I think it also counts twice against your quota.  However, "Shared Albums" (not "Family Sharing") doesn't count against your quota at all, but uses a lower quality image/video and has a few other limitations such as no face recognition and no means of sorting.

I'll be pedantic and warn you that iCloud isn't technically a "backup", it's just storage.  So if you use it for photos and delete the photo then it will delete it across all your devices and you can't restore it (once it leaves the "Recently Deleted" folder).  You can periodically download your images from iCloud to your computer so you then have several copies just in case.

I know it's quite confusing how Apple tell you that you still need to back up your photos - however I'm assuming that if you lost or damaged your device you could still  download all your lost photos

angela110660

I use this and pay 79pence a month for it. My quibble though is that some of our videos from over the years have pulled across but will not work as file format is unsupported(?) and the advice on how to sort it is mind blowing. Anyone got any tips or advice please? 

JJ_Egan

Download the videos and try reformatting them into a MP4 etc .