Even if my iPhone cannot download the entire library at once, there are methods to download, upload, and discard the offline copy (Google Photo iPhone app works this way). If Backblaze offered an iOS app that was $50/year, and it would create frequent backups of my iCloud Photo data, I would sign up immediately. This scenario is an opportunity for another company, though. As a backup focused person, I struggle not having an offline copy of my most precious data, though. With every new iPhone having a better camera than the last, it’s not going to be reasonable for people to have offline backups of their entire library for much longer. The problem is that our photo libraries are growing faster than device storage is growing.

If you have your photos backed up with a service like Backblaze, deleting it from your iPhone doesn’t immediately remove it from your backup set. With a backup service, it’s a one-way sync. Since you can delete items from any of your logged-in devices, an accidental mistake from one device can wipe out your entire library. ICloud Photos is a syncing service for your photos, albums, and edits. Why isn’t iCloud Photo a backup of your photos? Since iCloud Photos is a syncing service, it’s not a real backup. I’d love to see Apple or another company offer a way to backup iCloud Photo library. This situation makes my Time Machine and Backblaze backup useless for my photos since the majority of them are in iCloud.

My iCloud Photo library has grown to the place where I can no longer keep it all offline on my laptop (500GB) and still have room for other things. I’m all in on iCloud Photos, but I also let Google Photos and Amazon Photos upload my photos as well.

Before iCloud Photos, I used services like Everpix (RIP), Loom, and others. I’ve been obsessed with photo management and photo backup for years now.

Backblaze photos library