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11 Things to Look for in Photo Backup Services

Do you run out of room on your phone, or have you ever filled your memory cards by the second day of vacation? (Guilty!) Is your iCloud storage constantly on the brink of being full?

This is where unlimited and secure photo backup services come in to save the day.

Keeping my photos safe has been priceless for my business and for keeping our family’s vacation memories for years to come.

Maybe you’re a travel lover and amateur photographer like me. Or you’re growing as a professional photographer and you need a place to store thousands of photos for projects or for clients.

Without appropriate and secure digital photo storage in place, you risk losing your work and your special memories, or worse, you lose the ability to capture a scene or event in the moment.

We know you want to protect your family memories, landscape photos, street shots, and portraits.

So let’s plunge into the which features you should be looking for in the best unlimited photo storage solution.

11 Things to Look for in Photo Storage Plans

Fantastic Apps and Access
Quick Mobile Uploads!
Free Up Space on Your Devices
Unlimited Photo Storage
Organize Photos and Projects
Data Safety and Custom Photo Privacy
Showcase Photos with Custom Website or Portfolio
Prints, Wall Art, Keepsakes and More
Make Cash with Your Camera
Is it Worth the Money?
Free 14 Day Trial

family-picture-el-mirador-cozumel-island

1. Fantastic Apps and Access

Do you get tired of storing and deleting photos in limited places like iCloud or Google? Or having to pay for more storage, because the cloud is full? Ugh!

With all the photos we take, we don’t have time for that!

My friend and I are launching a Colorado hiking site, and we hike weekly. After we wrap up a hike, I need reliable, unlimited storage app to upload all of the day’s photos from my iPhone 12 Pro straight into a new, easily organized folder.

You should look for a photo backup app that is so user friendly, a 10 year old kid could show you how to use it. Find a photo backup app that works just as easily on your phone as it does your desktop.

I love the SmugMug app because it’s super user-friendly on my phone or on the desktop. I just open a folder (I designate mine by years), create a new gallery, label it, and upload the photos. Boom! Photo backup done in seconds.

On the rare occasion I use my older Canon camera, I just stick the memory card in my computer, then upload or drag photos to SmugMug from there.

SmugMug photo storage makes organizing, viewing, editing, and securing your photos easy from anywhere. It’s compatible with iOS, Android, Mac/Windows, Apple TV, and Lightroom.

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2. Quick Mobile Uploads!

With other photo storage apps, I get frustrated at all the hoops I have to jump through to upload my photos. I feel like I need a tutorial every time I’ve tried other apps.

You need an app that doesn’t take forever to upload your photos or keep you from doing other work on your device while it’s uploading.

At the end of every day of our family’s week long vacation snorkeling in Cozumel, Mexico, I simply uploaded the day’s photos into my SmugMug app — opened a new gallery and labeled it “Cozumel” under my 2020 folder. Swoosh! Done in seconds.

And I can still be on my phone or computer while the app is uploading pictures.

If you wait until the end of a week of vacation and you’re uploading several hundred pictures, then it might take a few minutes to upload your photo backup. But it’s super easy, and you can walk away or still be on your device while it uploads.

You can even set up SmugMug to automatically upload the day’s photos from your device. Easy peasy. Then you’ll know your photos are safe and secure.

Save 15% off any new SmugMug Package

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3. Free Up Space on Your Devices

At the risk of being repetitive, allow me to reiterate: I don’t want to wrestle with my iCloud storage and I don’t want to keep nagging my kids to go through and delete their saved photos.

Do you feel like you are always looking for ways to free up space on ALL your devices? We have six in our family, so we know! But our two older teens know they can do a photo backup whenever they want.

You need a photo backup app that frees up space on your devices.

We love that SmugMug features easy uploading and access from your computer or your phone.

Once your precious memories are uploaded, you can delete the photos from your device, thus freeing up space in a jiffy.

With SmugMug’s photo storage, you can always download a favorite photo or gallery later if you need it back on your device for a social media post or project.

Free Up Space! Set up your new SmugMug Account for 15% Today

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4. Unlimited Photo Storage

How many apps give you unlimited photo storage from the get go?

You want to protect your photos forever. And as many as you like. Without having to compress them into a zip file or whatnot.

And like us, you prefer to keep every fabulous shot in full resolution.

We literally have fifteen years worth of photo backups stored in SmugMug. Since I write an outdoor adventure travel blog for families, you can imagine we take a LOT of pictures.

No warnings about our photo storage about to be full. Ever.

Did you know that SmugMug can also store favorite videos? We’ve got some pretty funny videos of us sand sledding in Colorado’s Great Sand Dunes National Park and they are safely backed up in SmugMug.

SmugMug’s video feature can upload just about any video format. In general, they accept popular formats like .mov, .avi, most .mpeg formats, h.264, .m4a, .m4v, and .mts.

While video uploads are unlimited, please note that SmugMug users can upload stunning HD videos up to 20 minutes long in length and 3GB in size.

Unlimited Photo Storage 15% Off

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5. Organize Photos and Projects

Gone are the days of filed photo storage boxes filling up your closet shelf.

A lot of folks don’t even scrapbook much anymore. I only scrapbook a two page spread for each of my kids in their baby albums and I feel like a champ that I’ve kept that up.

We all know digital is where it’s at these days. Digital albums and digital slideshows. The occasional printing of a photo album for a special trip.

You need a photo organizer set up like grand central station to manage all of your pictures. That way you can easily dive into creating, arranging, sorting, deleting, writing captions, adding keywords—you get the idea!

SmugMug’s organizer is made to do just that. And their online Help Center and videos can show you in three minutes how to manage and use your settings and bulk tools, as well as how to sort photos and arrange or move pictures around.

Sort and organize to your heart’s content while knowing your photo backup isn’t going anywhere.

Add folders, galleries, or pages by clicking the Create button. Choose where your new folder, page, or gallery will show up. If you want to add a gallery to a specific folder, you can do that too.

You can also control the settings of each folder, gallery, or page level by selecting the one you want to work on.

In other words, EVERYTHING in it’s place the way you like it! Photo storage with all of your needs and wants in mind.

Get Organized Today - 15% off New SmugMug Accounts

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6. Data Safety and Custom Photo Privacy

The first questions wise people ask about a photo backup service: Is it safe? Is it private? Is it secure?

You want a server that will never sell your data. Ever. You want uncompromising security and cloud-secured storage.

Every photographer, amateur or professional, needs a secure, reliable place to store their photos.

You want a photo storage solution with customized features that enable you to allow friends to download photos from a specific album or gallery, if you decide to enable it.

Do you often unintentionally become the trip’s designated photographer? Following a trip where twelve of us — two families with four kids each — hiked down to Havasupai to see the Grand Canyon’s heavenly waterfalls, I was able to share a SmugMug link and a password to our Havasupai photo album so they could download favorite photos from the trip.

You can make your entire SmugMug public or private, or just designate certain albums or galleries to be private. It’s so easy to set up a password with links to albums, and you can change them at any time.

My teens often download past trip memories and love knowing their favorite photos are safe and secure. My daughter even created her own folder to save her favorite pictures.

And SmugMug will never sell your data.

Save 15% on all new SmugMug accounts - No Coupon Needed!

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7. Showcase Photos with Custom Website or Portfolio

Show off your work!

If you want a website, portfolio, or just a personal corner of the internet, you need a easy way to put your photos out there into the world on your terms.

If you’re a professional photographer looking to sell prints, etc, you need website designing tools with template options that don’t make your brain hurt. Same for if you want to showcase your stellar photography work through an online portfolio.

Smug Mug is also a fantastic gift for photographers in your life - help them get organized and showcase their work!

Smug Mug makes it easy for you through appealing website templates, drag-and-drop customization, password-protected galleries, professional organizing tools and high-quality prints (see below).

SmugMug offers themes, designs, and content blocks. They even offer a “school” online to teach you how to set up your own website!

SmugMug portfolios look amazing across all devices, and are optimized to help you monetize your site. On SmugMug search and learn more about how to create a Portfolio on their help site.

Custom Photo Websites - 15% off New Accounts!

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8. Prints, Wall Art, Keepsakes and More

Look for a photo storage service that uses world class photo labs to print your personal photos or photos for clients. You want a streamlined service where you don’t have to download photos and send them to a different site to buy prints.

You want an all-in-one photo backup and print shop.

Kanjiro Photography in Denver, Colorado took these beautiful shots of my kids, and now they are safe and sound forever in my SmugMug account. We enlarged them to 8X10s and hung them in our living room.

SmugMug’s one-stop easy photo shop makes it a breeze to buy paper prints, photo books, albums, keepsakes, and wall art.

They offer over 70 different sizes of paper prints in a variety of finishes. Add to that twenty different sizes of wall art with different options of materials used.

SmugMug prices are competitive with other quality photo print shops. Think of all the gifts you can create and give.

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portraits by Kanjiro Photography

protected by SmugMug

9. Make Cash with Your Camera

Like us, you want a photo storage server that doesn’t take hours to set up and understand. You want a place where your customers can shop and buy your amazing shots. And you want to set your own prices.

You need a photography backup platform that is built to keep up with your side hustle or full-time job.

Just 15 minutes to set up, there are sales tools available for every photographer with SmugMug. You can offer prints, products, and digital downloads. You can create custom price lists. Utilize Turnkey billing and other powerful client and sales tools are available with SmugMug.

SmugMug has been a life-saver for my work as a content creator for Rad Family Travel and Colorado Hikes and Hops.

We’ve been able to monetize our Squarespace curated sites, not by selling photos, but by showcasing beautiful outdoor destinations and the gear that gets us outside.

Sell Your Photos - 15% Off New SmugMug Accounts

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10. Is it Worth the Money?

When you’re looking for the best photo storage backup solution, naturally one of the first questions you’ll want answered is “How much will it cost me?”

You also want plan options and the ability to customize or up your plan as your profession or hobby grows. And you don’t want the price to keep changing on you because you’ve added more photos.

You want the most bang for our buck when it comes to photo storage, web designing, and setting up shop.

Super affordable plans makes SmugMug appealing, as you already know from all of their spectacular perks and tools mentioned above. Prices start from $55 annually, or $7 a month, for the Basic Plan.

SmugMug pricing includes four unique plan types for every type of photographer. They make sure you’re not paying for more than you need. Only buy the features you want.

Every SmugMug plan includes:

Unlimited, full-resolution storage
A personalized photo website
Detailed privacy and security controls
Free desktop and mobile apps
24/7 support from real humans

Then, you can decide to add extra options like a custom domain name, theft and misuse protections, photo selling tools, client and event management.

Or you can pick the photo backup plan that fits your business style or personal wishes: Basic, Power, Portfolio, or Pro.

Save 15% off any new SmugMug Package

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11. Free 14 Day Trial

Still not convinced?

SmugMug offers you a FREE 14-day trial.

You get two weeks to decide if you like SmugMug and which plan fits your needs. The best part: no credit card required.

Once you pick a plan, you can always change which plan fits your needs best.

Sign Me Up for SmugMug's Free 14 Day Trial

Conclusion

Choosing a photo storage plan that works for you shouldn’t be complicated.

SmugMug makes it easy.

SmugMug is by far our favorite photo backup option to date. Now we never wind up in the unfortunate situations mentioned above.

We hope you’ll give SmugMug a try as you decide which photo storage plan is right for you.

Try SmugMug for free and save 15% off when you use my link.

SmugMug really is your do-it-all photo place. Keep every pixel safe, share them securely with whoever you want, and use their sales platform to make money selling prints and downloads.

PRO TIP: For professional photographers who really want to showcase their work, while SmugMug is integral to storing photos and projects, Squarespace may be worth considering as it is one of the best website builders for serious photographers.

We use Squarespace to design and build our websites and we are big fans! Like SmugMug, Squarespace is super user friendly and has awesome customer service and online help pages.

Protect, Share, Store, and Sell your Photos — All with SmugMug.

15% off New SmugMug Accounts - Set Up Unlimited Photo Storage Today!

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Take Me There

Here is a list of the destinations shown in this post if you’d like to explore more with Rad Family Travel:

Havasu Falls - Hiking and Camping with Kids
Glacier National Park - Adventures on the West Side in July
Snorkeling in Cozumel
Colorado Springs Zip Lines over Seven Falls
Holbox Mexico - One Week on This Fun Island
Hiking the Loop in Garden of the Gods
Telluride and Ouray featured in our Southwest Colorado Road Trip
Mesa Verde Cliff Dwellings
Exploring Yosemite National Park with Kids

Disclosure: Rad Family Travel is also a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.

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