Find the best way to back up your iPhone and have free space- Use cloud services or back up apps

Now no longer business executives carry their important files in their bags  when going for meetings but have all the digital stuff stores on their smartphones and tablets. Be it their documents, irreplaceable photos and videos you have all but chances are they can be too stolen. Yes that’s right the data on your phone can be robbed, damaged or even wiped away and you need a back up of all your important things in hand to get them ready when you want.

There are a few solutions, such as syncing the phone with a computer via USB, or inserting a microSD card if you own an Android or Lightning flash drives for iOS, but one of the cheapest and easiest ways to safeguard your smartphone is by taking advantage of free cloud services. You often but wonder which one should you go with. Instead of or in addition to storing your files locally on your device, a cloud service lets you store and access your files in a password-protected online locker, of sorts.

Also cloud services can protect your data from local threats, such as theft or damage. Snap a photo on your iPhone and you can have a copy immediately uploaded to a cloud drive for safe keeping.

With cloud services, you can access all your backed-up stuff such as documents or media from virtually any online computer, tablet or smartphone in the world. Note that you need to be online, and it doesn’t matter from where.

Cloud services can also increase space in someone’s inbox. Rather than trying to email several large photos or videos to a colleague or family member, you can simply store them in the cloud and send a link to download.

Your colleagues can often collaborate on a cloud-stored document in real-time, even though they’re in different physical locations. This could be a more efficient process than sending revisions back and forth to one other. There’s also software-as-a-service (“SaaS”) that only runs in the cloud.

While you might only get a few gigabytes to get going, cloud services won’t cost you anything to store your files. You will need a password to access your files, and most cloud services also offer two-step authentication, which also requires a one-time code sent to your device, which you must type in, to prove it’s really you.

You’ve got some choice when it comes to cloud services for your smartphone and tablet, laptop, and desktop. Many of them have similar features and here are few of them that work for iOS devices like your iPhone or iPad:

Dropbox

You all are familiar with this app.  Dropbox supports multiple operating systems, and its clean and simple interface means its perhaps the easiest to use out of all the cloud providers, but it only offers 2 gigabytes (GB) of free storage – much less than other cloud providers. That said, your storage can be significantly increased by referring friends, linking to social media, and through other opt-in ways.

Features of this app

• Access your files on any device, even if you’re offline
• Create and edit Microsoft Office files from your iPhone or iPad
• Share links to your largest files without using email attachments

The app offer in-app purchases for Dropbox Pro, which includes 1 TB of storage and additional features. Dropbox Pro subscriptions purchased in-app renew monthly or yearly depending on your plan. Plans are priced at $9.99USD monthly and $99.99USD yearly (pricing may vary in countries other than the U.S.). To avoid renewal, you must turn off auto-renew at least 24 hours before your subscription ends. You can turn off auto-renew at any time from your iTunes account settings. Dropbox also offers one-month trials for monthly subscriptions.

Use iCloud

iCloud best for iPhone users and is already integrated into the iOS operating system. But since you only get 5GB of free storage, expect to get a message about running out of space pretty quickly – especially if you’ve enabled photo and video backup. Along with documents and media, iCloud also lets you sync contacts, calendars, email and bookmarks between iOS devices. Now, anyone can freely use Pages (word processor), Numbers (spreadsheets) and Keynote (presentation maker) inside of iCloud, as well.

You cannot earn additional storage like you can with Dropbox, but costs are more reasonable for additional iCloud storage: $0.99 cents for 50GB/month, $2.99 for 200GB, $9.99 for 1TB, and $19.99 for 2TB.

Amazon Drive App

Amazon Drive provides easy access to the documents, music, photos and videos that you have stored in Amazon Drive. Store your important files in Amazon Drive and keep them secure even if your iPhone or iPad is lost or damaged. Upload your content to Amazon Drive from any computer and preview, share and enjoy it on all your devices.

Features of this app

• You can upload photos, videos, documents, and other files from your iOS device
• Access all the content you have stored in Amazon Drive, no matter what device it came from
• Preview photos, videos, PDF, text, and Word documents
• Create folders and move files between them
• Search for, rename, and delete files and folders
• Share files as links and attachments through email, text message, and other apps

You can download Amazon drive app from iTunes for your iPhone Amazon Prime members ($99/year) get unlimited backup.

Not only the above apps provide you a back up put also help you and give you more free space on your iPhone. Checking how much space is left on iPhone is quite easy.  You can do this by going to Settings, then General, then Storage & iCloud Usage. This will give you a clear readout of how much space you have, with one additional click on “Manage Storage” giving you a detailed look at which apps are taking up the most space.

Now just back up your phone for easy access to your important documents and data at all times when you need them and also enjoy more free space on your device.