How to back up your iPhone photos without iCloud

If you use iCloud Photos with Optimise iPhone Storage, the phone may keep only small versions and fetch the originals from iCloud when needed. Copying those to a computer can give you reduced copies, or fail.

1. 1Open Settings and tap Photos.
2. 2If iCloud Photos is on, choose Download and Keep Originals and wait until your phone has finished downloading (you need enough free space and a Wi-Fi connection).

If you want to leave iCloud altogether, do not turn iCloud Photos off or delete anything until you have made and checked a copy, because turning it off can remove photos from the phone that were not fully downloaded.

Connect the iPhone with a cable and unlock it. If it asks whether to Trust This Computer, tap Trust and enter your passcode.

• On a Mac, open the Photos app, pick your iPhone in the sidebar and choose Import All New Items or select the photos you want. The Image Capture app is an alternative.
• On Windows, the Photos app has an Import option for a connected iPhone, and the folder shown under This PC can also be copied by hand.

Import into a folder on the computer's own disk, then copy that folder to a second place (see below). A single copy on one laptop is not a backup.

An iPhone with a USB-C port can use an external drive directly. In Photos, select the photos, tap Share, choose Save to Files, and pick the drive as the location. Older iPhones with a Lightning port need an adapter or a computer in between.

Whatever you use, do not rely on one drive. Drives fail and get lost, so keep a second copy somewhere else, such as a different drive in another place.

A computer backup saves the whole phone, not just photos. On a Mac with macOS Catalina or later, open Finder, select the iPhone and choose Back Up Now. On Windows, Apple's own app or iTunes does the same. The backup option Encrypt local backup protects it with a password you set.

If you tick that option, write the password down somewhere safe: if you forget it, the backup cannot be opened. A full backup is best for restoring a phone, while a plain photo import is better if you want to browse the pictures on a computer.

A copy of your photos on a laptop or a drive is readable by anyone who can open that folder, including photos you would rather keep private, such as ID cards, documents or personal pictures.

Lockboxy is an iPhone app that stores photos, videos, files, notes and passwords in an encrypted vault with its own passcode. With Premium, Settings → Security → Back Up Vault creates one encrypted backup file of the whole vault, and you choose where to save it: your own iCloud Drive, Google Drive, the Files app or anywhere else. Only your vault passcode, or the Recovery Key if you set one, can open it.

Once you have a backup you can use Check an existing backup in the same screen to confirm that it decrypts and will restore, without touching your vault. You can also turn on a weekly, two-weekly or monthly reminder, which only says a backup is due.

The two approaches work well together: ordinary photos go to your computer or drive, private ones live in the vault and are backed up as an encrypted file. Delete a private photo from Photos only after you have checked it is in the vault, and empty Recently Deleted afterwards. How to permanently delete photos on iPhone covers that.

1. 1Open the folder you copied to and sort by size. Zero-byte or tiny files are a warning sign.
2. 2Open a few photos and a video from the copy, ideally from different years.
3. 3Compare the count: the number of items in the copy should be close to the count at the bottom of your Photos library.

Do this before you delete anything from the phone or change your iCloud settings. A backup you have never opened is a guess.

• Importing to a computer, copying to an external drive and the Finder backup are free and built into iOS and your computer; you only need the cable or drive.
• Lockboxy's encrypted backup export is a Premium feature. The free plan holds up to 30 photos or videos and 10 files, and Premium removes those limits. Prices are on the Premium page and the app shows the exact price before you buy.
• If you forget the vault passcode and did not set a Recovery Key (Premium), nobody can open the vault or its backups, including us.
• Lockboxy backups are for the vault only. They do not copy your Photos library. For that, use the methods above.
• Apple changes menu names and behaviour between iOS versions. If a step does not match your screen, use Search in Settings.

If you are moving to a new phone rather than just saving copies, see how to move private photos to a new iPhone.