Best Cloud Storage for Photos and Phone Backups in 2026

Most people think about photo backup only on the day a phone is lost, stolen, or dropped in water. By then, years of pictures exist only on that phone. The free storage that came with it usually filled up long ago. A good photo backup works without you thinking about it.

New pictures should upload on their own, keep their full quality, and stay private if you want them to. The right service also changes as a library grows. We’d trust five services with a camera roll, and each one fits a different kind of library.

Photo Storage Services Compared

Service	Free storage	Paid plans from	Original-quality backup	End-to-end encryption	500 MB upload
pCloud	Up to 10 GB	500 GB, $49.99 a year or $219 lifetime	Yes	Paid add-on	3:32
Internxt	1 GB	1 TB, €285 lifetime	Yes	Yes	3:34
NordLocker	3 GB	500 GB, $35.88 for the first year	Yes	Yes	3:48
Google Photos	15 GB, shared with Gmail and Drive	100 GB, $19.99 a year	Original quality or Storage saver	No	3:33 (Google Drive)
MEGA	20 GB	200 GB, about $45 a year	Yes	Yes	4:00

In-Depth Reviews

1. pCloud: Best Overall for Photo Backup

The first time you open pCloud‘s phone app, it offers to enable Automatic Upload, which sends new photos and videos to your account as you take them. You can limit it to photos or videos, choose which phone folders to include, and keep it off mobile data. On a PC, its Backup tab copies picture folders too. Every file keeps its original resolution and format, and there’s no limit on file size, so camera RAW files and long clips upload whole.

The Photos section shows pictures by date and adds a basic editor for crops and color. Paid plans add passwords and end dates to shared album links, so share private albums from a paid account. The built-in player streams videos stored in the cloud without a download. In our November tests, its desktop upload used almost all of our connection’s upload speed.

Storage ranges from 500 GB to 10 TB, and 2 TB costs a little under $500 for life, room for roughly 400,000 phone photos at about 5 MB each. Standard files are encrypted on pCloud’s servers, with the keys kept by pCloud. For zero-knowledge privacy, where only you have the key, the pCloud Encryption add-on locks pictures on your device. Or choose Internxt, where every plan encrypts on your device.

A family lifetime plan covers up to five people, so one payment protects a whole household’s photos. Our pCloud review walks through the apps and add-ons.

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2. Internxt: Best Encrypted Storage for Large Libraries

Every picture you add to Internxt is encrypted before upload, so the company has no way to see your library. It uses AES-256, the standard most cloud services rely on, plus a post-quantum algorithm built to resist future quantum computers. Free accounts have the same protection. The web and mobile apps still show thumbnails and full-size previews. On paid plans, the phone app backs up the camera roll automatically to Internxt Photos.

Free accounts have that option locked, so photos go in by hand. The free 1 GB fits only about 200 photos, enough for a trial. Single files are capped at 100 MB on free accounts and 10 GB to 100 GB on paid plans, depending on the tier. Its upload trailed pCloud’s by 2 seconds in our test. There’s no editor, so make edits in another app before upload.

Five terabytes cost about €585 as a one-time payment, enough for roughly a million phone photos. Plan details are in our Internxt review, and our Internxt vs pCloud comparison looks at speed, privacy, and price.

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3. NordLocker: Best for Sharing Photos Privately

NordLocker locks each photo with encryption tied to a cloud password that only you know, and free accounts use the same encryption. Its phone apps upload the pictures and videos you select, up to 8 GB per file, but there’s no automatic camera upload, so pCloud is the better choice for a growing camera roll. Sharing is its strength: each link I created came with a security code and a 14-day expiry.

The code can be turned off, and the expiry can be extended to about a year. A family album sent to relatives expires on the date you set, and opening it requires no NordLocker account. Our encrypted cloud storage ranking explains zero-knowledge encryption in more depth. A deleted photo can’t be restored, as our test file showed, so keep the originals on a second drive.

NordLocker has no photo tools either, so your phone’s own editor is the place for crops and fixes. After a first year of about $84, the 2 TB plan costs about $180 a year, so plan for the higher price in year two. Our NordLocker review has details on the apps.

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4. Google Photos: Best for Finding and Editing Pictures

Google Photos finds pictures by the people, places, and things in them, so typing “beach” or a friend’s name brings up the right shots. Its editor covers crops, lighting, color, and removing unwanted objects. Most Android phones include it, and on iPhone, backup starts once you enable it in the app.

There are two upload settings: Original quality keeps files untouched, while Storage saver resizes photos larger than 16 megapixels to 16 megapixels and videos above 1080p (Full HD) to 1080p, so choose Original quality if you print your photos. Since June 2021, either setting counts against the 15 GB that Google shares across Gmail, Drive, and Photos, so delete large Gmail attachments to free up room.

About $20 a year covers 100 GB, and 2 TB costs about $100 a year, shareable with up to five family members. Google can access stored photos, so it isn’t on our list of the most secure cloud storage services. Keep private pictures on Internxt or MEGA instead.

5. MEGA: Best Free Photo Storage

MEGA started our new account with 20 GB, and with Camera Uploads enabled, each new picture and clip from the phone goes to the cloud. End-to-end encryption covers free accounts, so the photos stay private from MEGA itself, and the desktop app can back up a picture folder on a PC. Our 500 MB archive took 28 seconds longer to upload than on pCloud, and restoring a deleted file from the Rubbish Bin worked.

Free downloads count against a quota, so a full-library download may have to wait. MEGA treats a free account as inactive after three months without a login and sends warnings before its data can be deleted, so signing in now and then keeps the photos safe. Paying users can choose 200 GB at about $45 a year or 3 TB, the Pro I plan, at about $113 a year.

MEGA has no lifetime plan, so pCloud’s one-time payment suits people planning to stay for years. Password-protected links are a paid feature too, so upgrade before sending private albums. The MEGA vs pCloud comparison lines up the two paid offers.

How to Back Up Photos to the Cloud

1. Install the app on your phone and sign in. pCloud, Internxt, Google Photos, and MEGA work on iOS and Android.
2. Enable automatic upload. pCloud offers it when the app first opens, and Internxt includes it on paid plans. Later, it’s under Automatic Upload in pCloud, Backup photos in Internxt, Backup in Google Photos, and Camera Uploads in MEGA.
3. Choose the quality and the connection. Select original quality, and allow uploads on mobile data only if your phone plan has room for them.
4. Back up a computer too. Add your picture folders in pCloud’s Backup tab, Google Drive for desktop, or MEGA’s Backups section.
5. Confirm the upload before deleting. Open the cloud library on another device and check recent photos before clearing space on the phone.

On an iPhone with iCloud Photos enabled, set it to Download and Keep Originals so the full files are on the phone for another service to copy. Our list of iCloud alternatives covers the full move.

Free Photo Storage by Service

Service	Free storage	Main limit
MEGA	20 GB	Download quota
Google Photos	15 GB	Shared with Gmail and Drive
pCloud	Up to 10 GB	Starts at 2 GB
Amazon Photos	5 GB, unlimited photos with Prime	Prime covers only 5 GB of video
iCloud Photos	5 GB	Shared with iPhone backups
NordLocker	3 GB	No trash
Internxt	1 GB	2-day trash

MEGA’s 20 GB fits around 4,000 phone photos and Google’s 15 GB about 3,000, before Gmail takes its share. pCloud’s free plan grows to 10 GB through setup tasks and friend invites. More no-cost plans are ranked in our free cloud storage roundup.

Cloud Storage for Photographers and RAW Files

Camera RAW files are several times larger than phone pictures, so a photographer’s library grows into terabytes quickly. pCloud’s 10 TB lifetime plan costs a single payment of about $1,500, enough for a large RAW archive. Internxt charges less per terabyte for its largest lifetime plan and encrypts each file.

Google Photos accepts RAW files from most cameras, though they use up its 15 GB quickly. Amazon Photos keeps RAW images at full resolution too. For a Lightroom or Capture One workflow, back up the catalog folder with the photos, which pCloud’s Backup tab does on a schedule.

iCloud Photos, Amazon Photos, and Other Photo Services

• iCloud Photos syncs all your pictures across Apple devices with no setup, and plans range from 50 GB for under $1 a month to 12 TB. It has no Android app, and end-to-end encryption requires Advanced Data Protection, which is off by default. Live Photos stay intact there, while pCloud and Internxt stored each one as a separate still image and video in our iPhone test.
• Amazon Photos is a Prime benefit: members store unlimited full-size photos, and videos share a 5 GB allowance. Without Prime, accounts come with 5 GB, and extra space starts at under $1 a month for 50 GB. Neither service sells lifetime storage, and our price comparison of the cheapest cloud storage includes them next to pCloud and Internxt.
• Proton Drive backs up phone photos and videos at original quality with end-to-end encryption, and free accounts have 5 GB. The Drive Plus plan, with 200 GB, costs about $48 a year. OneDrive comes with Microsoft 365, and its Family plan includes 1 TB each for up to six people, plus the Office apps, for about $130 a year. We haven’t tested either service for this ranking.

How We Timed the Uploads

All timings in our November tests come from free accounts, which upload and download as quickly as paid ones. We timed the upload and download of one 500 MB archive in each desktop app, then deleted it from each account to see whether the trash could bring it back.

The test PC was a Windows 11 computer in Europe, and Google Photos figures come from Google Drive, which shares its storage. The fastest cloud storage ranking lists download times too.

Final Thoughts

For most photo libraries, pCloud is our first choice. It uploads new photos on its own, keeps the originals untouched, and ends the monthly bill with a lifetime plan that a whole family can share. For large private archives, Internxt encrypts every picture on your device and sells 5 TB for one payment.

NordLocker is the safest way to send albums to relatives, as long as the originals are backed up on another drive. Google Photos makes old pictures easiest to find with search by faces and places, though Google can see them. MEGA covers a small library for free, with 20 GB at signup.

Our best cloud storage services ranking compares the same services for everyday files. Turn on automatic upload the day you install the app, so new photos are protected from the start.

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