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Best photo storage site


The best photo storage and sharing sites in 2022

(Image credit: Google)

Using one of the best photo storage and sharing sites is vital if you have lots of photos. Whether you’re a pro photographer, an avid enthusiast or just like taking lots of casual pictures, storing them is becoming even more important than taking them.

With ever expanding sensor sizes and resolutions, even compressed JPEG files from the best cameras can top out at 20MB in size, while RAW files can touch almost 100MB. These file sizes add up pretty quickly when taking lots of high quality photos. But it isn’t just camera users that need more and more space — with the best camera phones now kitted out with huge sensors like the 48MP sensor in the iPhone 14 Pro and the 108MP sensor in the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, even casual smartphone photographers will find themselves with dwindling gigabytes to spare.

But it isn’t just extra space that should encourage you to use one of the best photo storage apps. These sites also provide security and peace of mind. If your laptop or hard drive dies, or you lose your phone, all of your photos will be safely backed up in cloud storage. And storing photos in the cloud also means you can access them wherever you have an internet connection.

Photographers will also want to consider the organizational aspects of photo storage sites, as the tagging systems often featured make filing, finding and keeping track of images a breeze. What’s more, having all your images in one place and online makes sharing them with friends and family super easy too.

Finding the right site all depends on what your needs are. Some sites offer free storage tiers, other offer built-in editing features or are more geared towards professionals. Whatever you need though, it’ll be easy to find one that’s right for you, and we’ve rounded up our favorites to help.

The 3 best cloud storage services for photos right now

If you're not so interested in the sharing, editing and organizing aspects of photo storage, and simply want a safe home for your digital images, you might be better looking at general cloud storage. We also have an article comparing cloud storage vs external hard disk drive so you can see what the advantages are.

You can view a full list on our best cloud storage for photos page, but we've included the top three here in case you want to jump straight to them.

1. IDrive - the best photo cloud storage right now
IDrive reviews consistently high due to its great features and fair pricing structure. It’s available on Windows, macOS, as well as smartphones and tablets running Android or iOS (and iPadOS), and offers a cost-effective, efficient way to store your photos, with an annual plan starting at $79.50. Better still, IDrive currently has an offer that gives you the first year for just $3.98 for 10TB of storage. That's an incredible 95% off!

3. Google Photos - top free service, and top paid features
Google Photos  is an easy-to-use, beginner-friendly service, with an excellent 15GB of free storage (images up to 16 megapixels and videos up to 1080p).  Paying for a Google One membership expands storage, and removes file size limits, while photo-oriented features include date and time categorization and facial recognition. Google Photos also features in our list of the best photo storage and sharing sites below.

3. Dropbox - excellent features across free and paid plans
Dropbox is one of the largest file storage platforms around, offering simple uploading, mobile apps, automatic transfer of files, and folder assist features. More advanced features include a 30-day file version history viewer, restore functionality, with a 2GB free account and paid plans offering terabytes of space.

What are the best photo storage and sharing sites?

After testing all of the major services, we think the best photo storage and sharing site is Flickr. While the free version of Flickr has a cap of 1,000 photos, a Pro account costs $60 per year, which gets you an unlimited number of uploads, as well as the ability to store videos up to 10 minutes in length.  Flickr has excellent tools for touching up photos and lots of tagging features, so it's easy to find your images. And, Flickr excels at letting you share your photos with others. 

Android and iPhone owners who simply want an easy way to back up their photos and video should check out Google Photos and iCloud, respectively. These two photo storage services are less expensive, and can store all your images in the cloud automatically. Plus, if you have a Google Nest Hub Max or some other smart display, you can sync it with your Google Photos account. 

However, Google Photos is no longer quite the deal it was. Last year, it ended its offer of free unlimited storage; now, any photo you upload will be counted against your 15GB Google Drive storage limit. 

Given that includes not just Google Photos, but Gmail and any other document you have saved in Google's cloud service, you can burn through it quite quickly. And if your combined files exceed 15GB, Google may delete those that go over the limit, after a warning.

Amazon Prime members might want to check out Amazon Photos, which offers unlimited storage with your Prime membership, and has pretty good tagging and sharing features. And, you can also display your photos on an Amazon Echo Show. If you plan to print anything out, though, we recommend using something other than Amazon Prints. And if you're choosing between the two services, you should find our Amazon photo storage vs Google Photos article helpful.

Read on for all of our top picks for the best photo storage and sharing sites. 

The best photo storage and sharing sites today

Flickr (Image credit: Flickr)

1. Flickr

The best photo storage service overall

Specifications

Free subscription: Up to 1,000 photos

Starting subscription price: $72/year

Today's Best Deals

Reasons to buy

+

Great selection of tools

+

Extensive tagging features

+

Clean interface

Reasons to avoid

-

Free accounts limited to 1,000 photos

Flickr is our pick of the best photo storage and sharing sites, thanks to its massive amount of storage and a simple, clean interface that makes it a joy to use. It remains the best option for serious shooters. Flickr also offers a great selection of tools, extensive tagging features and support for both viewing and downloading photos at a variety of resolutions (including, unusually, the option to offer the original size). There's even a stats engine that lets you track who is looking at your photos, while a very easy drag-and-drop system allows you to organize albums of your photos and collections of photos from you and other photographers. 

Since being sold to SmugMug, the company announced a cap of 1,000 photos on free accounts. If you upgrade to a Pro account ($72 per year), you get unlimited storage, the ability to view your images at resolutions up to 6K, no ads and the option to stream videos up to 10 minutes in length. Pro subscribers also get $35 off a $70 order at photo-book service Blurb. (In our opinion, Blurb isn't that great, so check out our picks for the best photo books). You also get 50% off the first year of a SmugMug subscription, among other bonuses.

Read our full Flickr review.

500px (Image credit: 500px)

2. 500px

Photo storage for pro photographers

Specifications

Free subscription: Up to 2,000 photos

Starting subscription price: $41.92/year

Today's Best Deals

Reasons to buy

+

Can sell your photos as royalty-free artwork through the site

+

Affordable subscriptions

Reasons to avoid

-

Doesn't offer photo-printing services

Aimed at serious photographers, 500px offers an image-focused design that puts your photos front and center, providing a clean and elegant way to display your best shots. You can organize your pictures into Sets (photos on a particular theme) and Stories (photos of an event) that present the images in a strikingly dramatic fashion. 

The free version of the service allows you to upload up to seven photos per week, but you can upgrade to one of two paid levels for a reasonable fee: Awesome usually costs $4. 99 a month, and Pro $9.99 a month, though the site is currently offering a discount on the first year (to $3.99 and $7.99/month). Both offer unlimited uploads, plus more customization options and listings in the sites' pro directory. Whichever option you choose, 500px remains one of the best photo storage sites.

Google Photos (Image credit: Google)

3. Google Photos

The best photo storage option for backing up photos from your smartphone

Specifications

Free subscription: Unlimited storage for photos up to 16 megapixels and videos up to 1080p

Starting subscription price: $2/month (100MB)

Today's Best Deals

Reasons to buy

+

Unlimited storage for Pixel owners

+

Lots of tagging and sharing features

+

Basic editing tools

Reasons to avoid

-

Photos limited to 16MP in size unless you pay for a Google Drive subscription.

-

Photos from non-Pixel devices will count towards your existing cloud storage limit.

Google's photo-sharing service was designed primarily as a way to back up photos and video taken on smartphones, but it has evolved into one of the smartest pieces of software in the entire Google ecosystem.

Google Photos uses AI to categorize your photos, making it super-easy to find the one you're looking for. Type in "cat" for instance and it'll search through them all and find every relevant photo (that could be a lot for some people). It will also identify people and group them together; once you give the group a name, you can then search for all photos featuring a particular family member or friend. 

It's also now a decent photo editing and sharing service. Once you've uploaded a photo, you can edit it by cropping and tweaking colors. Once the editing is done, you can create albums of photos and video that can be shared publicly or with specific Google users. In our roundup of the best photo editing software, we named Google Photos best for sharing. And, it's available for both Android and iPhone users.

Google keeps adding new features too. For example, if Google Photos sees that a particular friend is in your photo, it will offer to share it with them. It can also automatically colorize black-and-white images, too. For more information, here's our complete guide to Google Photos. If you have a Google Assistant-enabled smart display, such as the Google Nest Hub or the Google Nest Hub Max, you can also sync your Google Photos with the display, so they'll show up on the screen.

Google Photos used to offer unlimited space and uploads, up to a maximum resolution of 16MP and video at 1080p. But these days, any photos you upload from a non-Pixel device will count against your free 15GB Google Drive limit. Anyone using a Pixel 2-5 will be unaffected , so long as they stick to High or Express quality uploads. If you want to store bigger images or video files, you'll need to pay for space on Google Drive, which starts at $1. 99 / £1.99 a month for 100GB. 

Amazon Prime Photos (Image credit: Amazon)

4. Amazon Prime Photos

Unlimited photo storage for Amazon Prime members

Specifications

Free subscription: n/a

Starting subscription price: $139/year (unlimited)

Today's Best Deals

Reasons to buy

+

Unlimited storage

+

Auto-tagging of photos and videos

+

Decent sharing options

Reasons to avoid

-

No free tier

-

Amazon Prints not very good

Amazon Prime Photos is Amazon's photo storage site for Prime members. (Prime membership costs $139/ £95 year after a recent price hike.) The service lets you store and share unlimited photos on your desktop, smartphone or tablet, and automatically tags images and videos, such as by animal type, person, and location. You can also order photo prints, cards, calendars and more — all with free shipping. It's too bad that Amazon Prints sits at the bottom of our best photo books list.

Users can invite up to five friends or family members to receive unlimited photo storage and collect photos in a Family Vault, and you can show photos on the Echo Show or Fire TV. That might be a good way to share the latest family snaps with the grandparents. Amazon has added a feature called Groups that allows you to share photos with a larger group, which is useful if you are involved in a club or society.

Read our full Amazon Photos review.

iCloud (Image credit: Apple)

5. Apple iCloud

A no-brainer photo storage backup option for iPhone owners

Specifications

Free subscription: 5GB

Starting subscription price: $12/year (50GB)

Today's Best Deals

Reasons to buy

+

Easy to add photos from multiple users

+

Simple sharing tools

+

Tagging of people/places/things

Reasons to avoid

-

No Android version

Apple's iCloud service integrates with its own Apple Photos software on Macs and iOS devices, although you can use the basic features on a Windows PC. You can upload photos to the free 5GB of space and share them in an online photo stream that can be viewed in Apple Photos or as a web page. Photos can be tagged with names and locations, and other iCloud users can also add their photos. That's a neat trick for creating a photo record from multiple photographers — say, of a party or concert everyone attended. Apple Photos will also identify and group images with similar faces, which you can tag with a person's name and contact info.

If you run out of space, Apple offers three additional tiers: 50GB for 99 cents/month, 200GB for $2.99/month, and 2TB for $9.99/month. The latter two plans can be shared with other family members. Note also that Apple has now rolled out a feature to let iCloud users easily transfer photos and video to Google Photos — which might be worth checking out if you're running short of space and haven't already maxed out your Google storage.

Adobe Portfolio (Image credit: Adobe)

6. Adobe Portfolio

A good photo storage option for Adobe CC subscribers

Specifications

Free subscription: none

Starting subscription price: $120/year (20GB)

Today's Best Deals

Reasons to buy

+

Multiple storage options

+

Comes with subscription to Adobe programs

Reasons to avoid

-

Pricey for casual users

Adobe offers its Portfolio website creator and photo storage service to users of its Creative Cloud software subscription service, which provides access to programs like Photoshop and Lightroom.  

The starting plan is $9.99/month and includes 20GB of storage, as well as Adobe Fonts, Photoshop and Lightroom. A Photoshop-only plan comes with 100GB of storage for $20.99/month, while a Lightroom-only plan with 1TB of storage is $9.99/month.

If you really want to splash out then the top-tier plan is $52.99/month, and includes 100GB of cloud storage, plus all of Adobe's apps, including Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop, Premiere Pro, After Effects, and more. 

It's well worth a try, particularly if you are already paying for a Creative Cloud subscription. Individual photos and events can be tagged and labeled with captions and the presentation is clean and easy to use — no surprise, given that it's aimed at professional photographers marketing their services on Adobe's Behance website. Still, it would also work well for amateurs looking for a clean, simple way to show off their work.

ImageShack (Image credit: ImageShack)

7. ImageShack

Unlimited photo storage for a good price

Specifications

Free subscription: none

Starting subscription price: $3. 99/month, $37.99/year (unlimited)

Today's Best Deals

Reasons to buy

+

No free tier

Reasons to avoid

-

Available on Android, iOS, Windows, MacOS

Although it lacks a free tier, ImageShack's starting subscription — $3.99/month, or $37.99/year for unlimited photos — is pretty generous. With that, you also get the ability to watermark photos, embed photos, and share them. The Pro  ($29.99/month) and Premium ($99.99/month) tiers add additional bandwidth for users to view and download your photos, plus dedicated support, a dynamic image resizer, and API access. Regardless of the plan, photos are limited to 25MB in size, which could be a hindrance to professional photographers.

ImageShack also lets you tag photos, and follow other photographers on its site. And another nice extra is that there are apps for Android, iOS, Mac, and Windows that let you automatically upload and back up photos to your ImageShack account.

Photobucket (Image credit: Photobucket)

8. Photobucket

A plethora of editing and ecommerce tools for pros

Specifications

Free subscription: 250 photos

Starting subscription price: $72/year

Today's Best Deals

Reasons to buy

+

Lots of editing tools

+

Easy to sell prints

Reasons to avoid

-

Intrusive ads on free version

The free version of Photobucket offers photo storage for 250 photos, though it comes with very intrusive ads, including pop-ups that obscure your images. There are three levels of paid, ad-free service: Beginner (25GB of storage for $6/month), Intermediate (250GB for $8 a month) and Expert (unlimited storage for $13/month). If you pay for an annual subscription, the cost drops to $5.39/month for Beginner, $7.19 for Intermediate, and $11.69 for Expert.

All of these plans allow you to show the photos on a third-party site, which is useful if you want to put the photos on a social network site that doesn't have its own image-uploading feature.

Photobucket has a generous collection of editing tools through a simple, easy-to-use interface. This list includes unusual tools like the smart color brush, which selectively adds color back into a black-and-white image.

Once you have edited your photos, you can add basic tags and organize them into albums or stories, the latter of which is a neat scrolling presentation of photos and accompanying text. Photobucket also provides extensive support for selling prints: you can buy individual photos, photo books (starting at $1.99) or even things like fleece blankets and tablet cases with your photos on them.

Smugmug (Image credit: SmugMug)

9. SmugMug

Lots of ecommerce tools for pro photographers

Specifications

Free subscription: none

Starting subscription price: : $75/year

Today's Best Deals

Reasons to buy

+

Lots of templates

+

Ecommerce tools

+

Unlimited storage

Reasons to avoid

-

No free subscription

SmugMug is another design-focused photo storage site that offers a stylish home for your photos, with a custom homepage (such as richardb. smugmug.com) and many well-made design templates. Against that, SmugMug costs more than most of the services in our list. There is no free version (though there is a 14-day free trial) and the cheapest level costs $9 per month (or $75/year). That rises to $360/year for the Pro plan, which offers professional features such as ecommerce tools.

Regardless of the plan, you get a lot for your money, with unlimited storage of photos (each up to 500MB in size) and 1080p videos, and a good range of editing tools that are simple to use but powerful. These won't replace Photoshop in a professional photographer's toolbox, but they are good enough to fix most common photography issues and tweak a photo.

Dropbox (Image credit: Dropbox)

10. Dropbox

Generous photo storage, but no tagging or editing features

Specifications

Free subscription: 2GB

Starting subscription price: : $120/year (2TB)

Today's Best Deals

Reasons to buy

+

Good sharing options

+

Lots of storage space

Reasons to avoid

-

No tagging of photos

-

No editing features

Dropbox offers support for photo storage, with its Android and iOS apps automatically uploading photos from mobile devices. You can also upload images from your computer to Dropbox as you would with any other files. Once photos are in the cloud, you can create and share basic slideshows that anybody can access, or share the files directly with other Dropbox users.

Unfortunately, there is no tagging, no printing and no way to edit photos online. Dropbox does offer a free collaborative editing tool, called Dropbox Paper , that is rather like Google Docs, but this doesn't offer photo-editing features. As such, Dropbox is a good option for photographers who want to back up photos, but not for those who want to catalog and permanently store their images. 

Dropbox offers a free 2GB plan; a 2TB plan costs $9.99/month, and includes 30 days of version history and file recovery. The Pro Plan ($16.58/month) gets you 3TB of storage, but 180 days of file recovery, as well as a host of other features. Here is a list of all of Dropbox's storage plans.

Facebook (Image credit: Facebook)

11. Facebook

Free photo storage, but images get compressed

Specifications

Free subscription: unlimited

Starting subscription price: : n/a

Today's Best Deals

Reasons to buy

+

Free to use

+

Facial recognition auto-tags people

+

Easy to share with others on Facebook

Reasons to avoid

-

It's Facebook

-

Images get compressed

The big kahuna of social sites also offers a surprisingly good set of photo storage, sharing and editing tools, with some caveats. After uploading photos from a cellphone, web browser or desktop client, you can create albums, add captions and tag photos by date, location or the people in the pictures. Face recognition has also been added; it will try to recognize the faces in your shots and tag those people if they are on Facebook. However, Facebook does shrink the images to fit onto the page; Facebook recommends sizing pictures to 720 or 960 pixels wide. You can use 2048-pixel-wide images if you select the high-quality upload option, but if the image is larger than 100 kb, it will get compressed for viewing. 

Another downside is that there is no way to share the original-size photo. But if a lot of your family members and friends are already on Facebook, it's a great way to share casual shots or family photos.

How to pick the best photo storage site for you

To be considered one of the best photo storage sites, a service should offer six things:

  • Value: It should have enough storage to keep all of your photos in one place over the years at a low cost.
  • Quality: Your photos should be preserved in all their original high-res glory, not compressed beyond recognition.
  • Ease of use: You need to be able to upload photos easily and edit them.
  • Ease of access: Finding photos by date, tags or other means should be achieved without hassle.
  • Shareability: A good photo site makes sharing photos as easy as taking them, allowing you to post pictures to sites like Facebook, Twitter and others.
  • Printability: You or someone else who likes your photo should be able to buy a print or put together a photo book easily.

How much photo storage do you need?

In one sense, this question is impossible to answer: it obviously depends on how many photos you have, as well as on other factors such as which devices you use and which quality settings you shoot at. 

However, we can give you some simple calculations, based on various average sizes of photos.

If you do most of your photography on a smartphone, your images are probably 4-10MB in size. Modern mirrorless cameras will usually run to more like 15-20MB and RAW files can be as big as 30-50MB. So, as a (very) rough estimate, that gives you: 

Device5GB10GB100GB250GB
Smartphone (10MB)5001,00010,00025,000
Mirrorless (20MB)2505005,00012,500
RAW (40MB)1252502,5006,250

Even a (very rough) estimate like the above gives you an idea of the huge difference between the 5GB of free storage you get on Apple's iCloud vs something like the 250GB you get with Photobucket's Intermediate subscription. 

But do also bear in mind that some services are based on number of photos rather than size — and if you mainly shoot with more space-hungry devices such as big-sensored mirrorless cameras and DSLRs, you might therefore be better choosing one of those (or something that offers unlimited storage)

Of course video is a different matter still, and is even harder to calculate due to length being yet another factor. Our suggestion here is to divide the file size by length of video for a given device to get an estimate for MB/minute, then work out roughly how many minutes' footage you will want to store, then go from there. You might need a calculator for that one. 

How we test photo storage sites

To find out which photo sites offer the best bang for your buck, we tested a number of them by uploading an assortment of photos from our camera reviews, tagging and organizing them as the site recommended. We also evaluated how well a site's auto-tagging feature worked, if available, and looked at if a site stored our images at their full resolution.

We then looked at the various ways we could share and print photos, to determine which site offers the best and easiest-to-use range of features.

Also part of our evaluation was the cost of storage, for both free and paid tiers. While this wasn't the determining factor — organizational and sharing features were given a higher priority — it did count in our overall rating. With all those factors considered, we were able to compile our list of the best photo storage sites.

Related content:

  • The best cloud storage for photos and pictures: free and paid
  • How to choose a cloud storage and backup provider
  • 5 things to consider when selecting your next online storage provider
  • How to edit photos in Microsoft Paint

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Formerly Editor in Chief (U.K.) on Tom’s Guide, Marc oversaw all gaming, streaming, audio, TV, entertainment, how-to and cameras coverage, and was also responsible for the site’s U.K.-focused output. He is now U.K. Editor in Chief on TechRadar. Marc previously edited the tech website Stuff and has tested and written about phones, tablets, wearables, streaming boxes, smart home devices, Bluetooth speakers, headphones, games, TVs, cameras and much more. He also spent years on a music magazine, where his duties mainly involved spoiling other people’s fun, and on a car magazine. An avid photographer, he likes nothing better than taking pictures of very small things (bugs, his daughters) or very big things (distant galaxies). When he gets time, he also enjoys gaming (console and mobile), cycling and attempting to watch as much sport as any human can. He's also fallen in love with Wordle over the past six months and is the author of our today's Wordle answer column, in which he supplies hints and strategy tips for the mega-popular word game. Given he's completed every single Wordle so far and only lost once, and analyzed every Wordle answer in search of patterns, he's well qualified to help you safeguard your streak.

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Best cloud storage for photos and pictures in 2022

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• The best cloud storage for photos

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• Photo cloud storage reviews

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As photography technology advances, ensuring you've got the best cloud storage for photos and pictures becomes ever more important. With every smartphone having high-quality cameras built in, and digital cameras going from strength to strength, it's never been more key to backup meaningful and important images.

Photos are a major way that we record our lives and capture memorable moments, whether these be family holidays to once-in-a-lifetime events. While previously backing up photos meant painstaking transfers from storage cards to computers and then to external hard drives, the proliferation of affordable cloud storage means it's now much simpler and quicker to save everything to the cloud.

Another advantage is that when you were backing up to hard drives or CDs, you always faced a capacity limit: cloud storage is potentially limitless, and it just depends on how much you want to save and how much you're willing to pay. It's also far more secure than the older physical mediums, as your files are backed up to multiple cloud servers in data centers, manned by security and utilizing encryption.

As such, there's no better time than now to invest in the best cloud storage for photos and pictures. We've reviewed, evaluated, and ranked the best cloud storage for photos across paid and free services below.

The 3 best cloud storage for photos

IDrive: the best photo cloud storage right now
IDrive tops our ranking thanks to great features and a fair pricing structure. It’s available on Windows, macOS, and smartphones and tablets running Android or iOS (and iPadOS), and offers a cost-effective, efficient way to store photos, with annual plans starting at $79.50.

Google Photos: top free service, and top paid features
Google Photos is an easy-to-use, beginner-friendly service, with 15GB free (up to 16MP, and videos up to 1080p).  Paying for a Google One membership expands storage, removes file size limits, and adds date and time categorization and facial recognition.

Dropbox: excellent features across free and paid plans
Dropbox is one of the largest storage platforms, offering simple uploads, mobile apps, automatic transfers, and folder assist. It offers a 30-day file version history viewer, restore functionality, a 2GB free account, and paid plans offering terabytes of space.

Check out these great cloud storage deals:

Get 10TB cloud storage for $3.98 for the first year
IDrive is offering its 10TB personal cloud storage for only $3.98 for the first year, for a limited time only! With this plan, you can enjoy that storage alongside multi-device backup, IDrive's Snapshot file-versioning tool, and the IDrive Express physical storage service.

Get Backblaze for free with every ExpressVPN purchase
ExpressVPN , Tom’s Guide’s #1 VPN provider, is offering free unlimited cloud backup via Backblaze  for an entire year with its annual subscription. Take advantage of secure, business-grade online backup with industry-leading VPN, no strings attached.

What is the best cloud storage for photos?

The internet is packed with great cloud storage services, many of which come with tools to help you organize and share your photos online. Finding the best cloud storage for photos is all about figuring out what features fit with your style of photography. 

For example, photographers who love to share their work should look for a cloud storage service that supports the creation of public galleries. Some cloud providers like Flickr even feature social networking tools to help you connect with your audience.

One major advantage of using a cloud photo storage platform is convenience, as these services enable you to access your snaps whenever and wherever you can get online.  

IDrive and Adobe Creative Cloud, in particular, have powerful mobile applications that enable you to easily manage your cloud collection from iOS and Android devices. As a result, many photographers consider these two to offer the very best cloud storage for photos.

If you're an amateur photographer and aren't monetizing your photos, there’s no reason to pay for an expensive provider, as there are a ton of free or affordable options. Google Drive is arguably the best cloud storage service for those wanting to save cash, as it can be used to store an unlimited number of shots for free, though some resolution limits do apply.

The best cloud storage for photos available

(Image credit: IDrive)

IDrive

A secure way to store your photos online

Today's Best Deals

Reasons to buy

+

Rapid uploads and downloads

+

User-friendly web interface

+

Automatic image detection and uploading

Reasons to avoid

-

Overage charges if you exceed storage limit

-

Prices may increase when your first-year discount ends

IDrive ranked top of our rundown of the best cloud storage services for general use, so it’s not surprising that it’s also a fantastic option for storing photos. You can connect your account to multiple devices, which is perfect for any photographers who shoot on more than one camera. 

Also making IDrive one of the best cloud storage services for convenience is an Auto Camera setting. If you activate this, IDrive will automatically upload any new photos or videos that appear on the device, so you never have to worry about losing a shot.

Another cool feature is automatic facial recognition. If you have a large family or take a lot of portrait shots, this tool will automatically sort photos by the people in them, and facial detection information can be shared across any devices added to your IDrive account. 

Lastly, for a limited time only it's offering its 10TB personal cloud storage plan for $3.98 for the first year , which we think offers incredible value.

Read our IDrive cloud storage review .

(Image credit: Google)

Google Drive and Google Photos

A powerful cloud storage service

Today's Best Deals

Google - Photo books from

$11. 99

Visit Site at Google Photo

Reasons to buy

+

Connects to other Google productivity apps

+

AI recognizes and organizes photos by faces

+

Unlimited free storage for 16MP photos

Reasons to avoid

-

Confusing connection between Google Drive and Google Photos

-

The scale of the platform is intimidating for some 

Google Drive is more than just another storage app. This is a well-rounded cloud platform that connects to the comprehensive Google Workspace productivity suite, which supports file sharing and collaborative document editing. 

You can store your photos and sync live changes and edits from your desktop computer using Windows and macOS applications. However, Drive does lack some of the photography-oriented features found with other services on this list.  

That’s why the best way to use Google Drive to store your photos online is to use the connected Google Photos storage service. Until mid-2019, photos would sync automatically between Google Drive and Google Photos, but Google decided this was too confusing for users and discontinued the practice. 

Today, photos can still be transferred, but once this is done, the two copies of the file are no longer linked. You can now use Google Photos to back up unlimited photos as long as they aren’t larger than 16MP. Although that limit shouldn’t cause a problem for family or holiday shots, professionals may wish to upgrade to a paid Google One membership , which removes any limit on photo size. 

Google One also expands the amount of Drive storage space you get for other file types. Free Google Drive users get 15GB, while Google One subscribers paying $1.99 a month receive 200GB. Subscriptions of up to 30TB are available. 

Read our full Google Drive review .

(Image credit: Dropbox)

Dropbox

Flexible image storage in the cloud

Today's Best Deals

Reasons to buy

+

Proven network cloud infrastructure 

+

Uploads your photos automatically

+

Easily restore a previous version of your gallery

Reasons to avoid

-

Paid plan is quite pricey

-

Fewer photo-specific features than other platforms

With around 400m users storing approximately 600bn pieces of content, Dropbox is one of the largest file storage platforms around. When you look at its features, many of which are great for photos and images, it’s easy to see why. 

For starters, Dropbox simplifies the process of uploading photos. If you install the app on a phone or tablet, you can activate automatic transfer of new images from your camera roll to your account. You can also do this on a desktop by telling the Dropbox Windows or macOS program to scan connected camera cards or mobile devices for images.

Once photos are uploaded, a helpful folder system organizes them. Even better, if you want to edit photos after uploading, the desktop app can sync folders so that they appear in Windows Explorer or macOS Finder. Any modifications you make with photo editing software will be automatically detected and synced. 

Besides this, Dropbox has unique features that you won’t find with many other cloud photo storage services, including a 30-day file version history viewer and a restore feature to protect you from accidental deletions. 

You can get 2GB free, which is a good starting point if you don’t have too many photos. For a more reasonable capacity, it’s worth upgrading to Dropbox Plus which, for $11.99 a month, will net you 2TB. Free and paying Dropbox users can upgrade storage capacity by referring the platform to a friend.  

Read our Dropbox cloud storage review .

(Image credit: Microsoft)

Microsoft OneDrive

Strikes a balance between functionality and affordability

Today's Best Deals

Reasons to buy

+

Affordable multi-user plans

+

Get free access to useful office tools

+

Advanced photo search features

Reasons to avoid

-

Not entirely focused on photography

-

5GB free space fills up fast 

If you’re looking for a straightforward cloud storage platform where you can store your photos without having to figure your way around new and unfamiliar interfaces, Microsoft OneDrive is worth a look. Microsoft has intentionally made OneDrive’s appearance similar to that of Windows 10, which means there’s basically no learning curve for any Windows users moving to the platform.  

OneDrive is a general-purpose cloud storage platform, and its chief selling point is seamless integration with popular Microsoft 365 applications like Word and Excel. But that’s not to say that OneDrive doesn’t have some excellent photo management features. In fact, it supports tagging, photo search, and album creation.

Pricing is pretty affordable too. It matches Google Drive’s budget plan, with 100GB costing $1.99 a month. If you're a fan of Microsoft’s productivity tools, a better option is to go with the Microsoft 365 Personal subscription which, for $69.99 a year, gives you 1TB and access to core Office apps.

Read our Microsoft OneDrive cloud storage review .

(Image credit: Flickr)

Flickr

Free cloud photo storage if you don’t mind compressed formats

Today's Best Deals

Reasons to buy

+

Paid accounts have no storage limits

+

Promote your photography

+

A beautiful way to show off your shots

Reasons to avoid

-

Can’t be used for RAW images

-

Free version is ad-supported

If you’re looking for high-quality cloud photo storage on a budget, Flickr could be the right option. You can think of it as part-cloud photo storage, part-photo-sharing social network. It’s one of the original photography sites to make it big on the web and has an estimated 87m registered members.

Flickr lets you upload up to 1,000 photos and videos free of charge. To remove that limit, you can go for a Flickr Pro+ account . These cost $7 a month or $60 a year. Pro+ users aren’t just freed from storage limits; they can also see advanced statistics and learn which shots are generating the best response in the community. 

The greatest thing about Flickr is that you can show off your photos in a classy photostream. Because this is a photo network, other users will be able to respond to your shots unless you make them private. Overall, Flickr is a good way to display and store photos, but the one downside is that it can only handle compressed images, so this isn’t the right place to keep your RAW files. 

Read our Flickr review .

(Image credit: Adobe)

Adobe Creative Cloud

Amazing edit tools and affordable storage

Today's Best Deals

Creative Cloud Photography

$9. 99

/mth

Creative Cloud Single App

$20.99

/mth

Creative Cloud All Apps

$29.99

/mth

Visit Site at Adobe

Reasons to buy

+

Integrates with Adobe image editing tools

+

Apps for pretty much any device

+

Use your library to build a photography site

Reasons to avoid

-

20GB plan is expensive for the space you get

-

Works best if you commit to the Adobe ecosystem

As a photographer, you’re probably already familiar with Adobe's suite of photo manipulation tools, but did you know it now also offers cloud photo storage? 

Through Adobe Creative Cloud, you can access three different cloud storage plans . Two come with 1TB, while the other includes 20GB, and prices are set at $9.99 or $19.99 a month. Remember that there's a seven-day free trial available with Creative Cloud, allowing you to try out the many apps for free before you decide which paid plan to go for.

You can’t store many photos with the 20GB package (the Creative Cloud Photography Plan), but Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom both get thrown in for free. Considering that Photoshop and Lightroom are two of the best photo editing tools around, the 20GB option is still well worth it if you want to produce the best images possible.

Managing photos in Creative Cloud is a pleasant experience too, thanks to classy image galleries where you can explore your work or share shots with others. With Group Libraries, collaborators can add photos to shared folders, though you can always make individual folders private. Adobe's created macOS, Windows, iOS, and Android Creative Cloud apps, so uploading is a breeze no matter what device you’re using.  

At the same time, direct integration with Lightroom, Photoshop, and Elements means you can always dive into an image to make adjustments. Unsurprisingly, given Adobe’s rich photo-editing pedigree, Creative Cloud is fully compatible with RAW images. As such, this is a suitable platform for professional photographers who don’t want to lose quality when storing images. 

Read our Adobe Creative Cloud review focusing on its cloud storage.

Creative Cloud has seamless integration with Adobe apps
Adobe's Creative Cloud Photography Plan comes with 20GB as standard (as well as Photoshop and Lightroom). You can upgrade to 2TB, 5TB, or 10TB starting at $9.99 per TB, and there's also a seven-day free trial available, so you can test it out before you sign up.

(Image credit: pCloud)

pCloud

Makes modifying photos online convenient

Today's Best Deals

Premium 500 GB Annual

$3. 99

/mth

Premium Plus 2 TB Annual

$7.99

/mth

Premium 500 GB Lifetime

$175

Visit Site at pCloud

Reasons to buy

+

Works well with different photo file types

+

No monthly charges

+

Useful Lightroom plug-in

Reasons to avoid

-

Pricey 

-

Monthly download quota

Some cloud storage platforms are limited when it comes to modifying photos once you’ve uploaded them, but that’s not the case with pCloud. This service enables you to resize photos within your browser and archive older photos, so you can better focus on your favorite shots.  

Advanced photographers will appreciate that pCloud automatically provides previews and thumbnail icons of uncompressed RAW format photos (which are better for editing). Also, pCloud can connect directly to Lightroom on Windows and macOS devices, so you can upload shots as soon as you’re finished modifying them.

Another element that distinguishes it is pricing . While almost all competitors charge a monthly subscription, you can pay pCloud a one time fee for a lifetime of 500GB or 2TB. Although the upfront cost is higher, many photographers prefer it, as you can pay once and forget about it. There’s no need to worry about rates being increased over time, or photos being deleted if you stop paying. 

So that its unique payment system isn’t abused, pCloud does limit the amount of data you can download or stream from your account each month. If you have a 2TB account, for example, you’ll only be able to download 2TB in any given month. 

In an image backup use-case, there’s not normally a need to constantly download data from the cloud anyway, so this won’t cause an issue for most photographers.  

Read our pCloud review .

pCloud offers top security and a great lifetime deal
pCloud is one of the few cloud storage providers that offers a lifetime subscription. You pay once and get to keep the software and storage forever. pCloud also offers top-notch security and features 'file-versioning', and is a great all-round choice for photographers.

Cloud storage for photos FAQ

What is cloud storage for photos and pictures?

Cloud storage utilizes physical servers to save files on the internet, via internet-connected data centers. These servers are owned, maintained, and run by cloud storage providers, and offer storage for all manner of files.

When it comes to cloud storage for photos, many of the best cloud storage services are also providers of the best cloud storage for photos. You can upload, save, download, and securely backup important image files, and can access them wherever you are, as long as you're connected to the internet.

How do you choose the best cloud storage for photos?

There are plenty of great photo storage services out there, but how do you work out which is right for you? Take into account key factors such as ease of access from mobile and desktop, gallery sharing features to promote your work, the size of your photo library and the number of images you'd like to store online, and much more.

The majority are “freemium”: although they offer some free storage, extra capacity can only be unlocked by signing up for monthly or annual subscriptions. Price per GB can differ dramatically, so it’s worth shopping around and keeping an eye on the capacity you'll require.

When it comes to storage capacity, the average 16MP JPEG requires 4.8MB, so if you have 500 to upload, you’ll need a plan with at least 2.5GB. Fortunately, most services won’t charge for that amount of space,

If you want to preserve original image information via RAW files, almost any service will allow uploads of compressed JPEGs, PNGs, or GIFs: the same can’t be said for uncompressed RAWs or TIFFs. Check if they’re supported, and how many you'll need to save: 500 RAW 16MP photos will take up approximately 2.5TB, so you’ll need a monthly subscription.

Remember that upload and download times will depend on the speed of your own connection. You’ll be better off investing in a physical storage medium if you don’t have a swift ISP. 

Look for services that offer Android and iOS apps if this is something you want to take advantage of. Some go above and beyond by letting you create stunning sites and profiles, like Flickr. Finally, a major benefit is that you can access, edit, and share photos even when you’re away from your workstation.

How we review the best cloud storage for photos

When we come to review cloud storage services, first of all we test the upload and download times for file transfers, because these are integral to the performance of platforms and usage. In turn, we examine how a given service's security tools and features work and how comprehensive they are, to ensure your files are kept safe from hacking or accidental loss.

Next, we test the responsiveness and knowledge of customer service and support teams, as when there's an issue you want to be sure your provider will quickly get back to you, and will know how to fix the problem. In a market vertical with varying levels of free and paid plans, we explore and explain pricing in-depth, while we also test out and discuss any additional tools or features offered by the service.

Across our comprehensive reviews of each cloud storage platform, we also compare each service to its competitors, specifically in terms of pricing and key features. We undertake all of this during testing so that you, the consumer, can benefit from as much information about each service as possible before you choose.

Next steps with cloud storage

Follow our cloud storage checklist when looking for a provider of online storage , and learn top tips for data backup and recovery . If you're uncertain as to the differences between cloud storage, cloud backup, and cloud sync , inform yourself with this comparison.

If you're looking for storage beyond just photos, or have a tighter budget, take a look at our other buying guides that evaluate the best free cloud storage , the best personal cloud storage , the best cloud storage for business , 

Round up of today's best deals

Google - Photo books from

$11.99

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Creative Cloud Photography

$9.99

/mth

View

Premium 500 GB Annual

$3.99

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Top 10 Photo Storage & Hosting Sites in 2022

Photo Storage Top 1. Photobucket

Photobucket is an image hosting website and has over 100 million registered users. It is one of the most popular photo storage sites on the web. It is a social platform with many ways to share photos with specific friends and on social networks. Just learn more about the different photo storage app plans as below.

Free plan : Photobucket free plan starts with 2 GB free plan. You can also get 8 GB of free storage if you download the mobile photo storage app.

Paid Plan: And the paid plan ranges from 99 cents per month with 2GB ad-free to a 500GB storage limit for $40/month or $400/year.

Key features :

1. You can create and purchase printouts based on photos stored in Photobucket.

2. If you want to publish your photos online, Photobucket will create a link to share your photos.

3. You can access Photobucket from the mobile app or the web app.

4. Photobucket has integrated photo editor with photo editing tools.

Pros :

1. This image hosting service has all the features you need, including storage, editing, printing and sharing.

2. You can upload full size images.

Cons :

1. The free account only allows you to transfer 10 GB of photos per month.

2. Free accounts must view ads.

Photo storage space. Top 2. Dropbox

Dropbox is not a specialized photo hosting, but a file hosting. It was launched in 2007. Today it has over 500 million users worldwide. Dropbox provides a reliable and easy-to-use photo storage service. In addition to photos, you can upload any file to the Dropbox website. The service automatically and quickly syncs your files across all your devices. So you can access everything, everywhere.

Free Plan: Dropbox initially provides 2GB of free photo storage and you can earn 500MB by referring one friend you referred to Dropbox who signed up for the service, up to a total of 16GB or 32 referrals.

Paid plan : Dropbox only offers one paid plan for storing photos. You can get $9.99/TB for one month or $99.99 for a whole year.

Key features :

1. It has desktop applications for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and mobile applications for iOS, Android and Windows phones.

2. You can use the streaming sync feature of the Dropbox desktop app to sync large files at a faster speed.

3. The automatic photo upload feature in the Dropbox mobile app can back up photos or videos from cameras, SD cards, tablets, or smartphones to the Camera Upload folder in Dropbox.

4. To improve security, Dropbox has released a two-factor authentication USB security key.

Pros :

1. Dropbox is compatible with a wide range of platforms and devices.

2. Photo hosting features are easy to use.

Cons :

1. Free storage is limited. And the price of a pro account is higher than on other photo hosting sites.

Photo storage. Top 3. Flickr

Flickr is a well-known photo hosting and video hosting. It was released in 2004 and acquired by Yahoo a year later. It currently has millions of users around the world. To get photo storage space for free, you can use Flickr as a solution. There is a size limit of 200MB per photo or 1GB (3 minutes) per video you upload to Flickr. What's more, you can also upload and download images in full original resolution.

Free Plan: You can get a whopping 1TB of free photo storage, enough for 500,000 photos.

Paid plan : Flickr offers two paid plans. It is planned to remove ads. And the other offers 1TB more storage space. The ad-free plan provides $5.99 for one month or $50 for one year. As for the extra storage for the photo storage app, you can have 2TB for 49$9 for one year.

Key features :

1. You can use your Yahoo account to log in to Flickr and enjoy free storage.

2. In terms of customers, Flickr has a desktop app, a web app, and a mobile app for various platforms.

3. You can upload full size images and download them in various resolutions.

4. It also offers online photo editing tools and tagging features.

Pros :

1. Flickr uses image recognition to automatically organize images.

2. You can upload full size images.

Cons :

1. Free account must view ads.

Photo storage space 4. Google Photos

Google launched Google Photos in 2015. It already has 500 million users and has over 1 billion images. This is my favorite photo storage plan. Compared to other online photo storage services, you can enjoy unlimited storage for photos and videos, as well as many photo editing features in Google Photos. Here are the features you can learn about photo storage app.

Free Plan: As mentioned earlier, you can enjoy completely free photo storage space with your Google account. But the plans will compress photos larger than 16 megapixels.

Paid plan : With a Google account, you get 15 GB of storage for free and can pay for additional storage: $1. 99 per month for 100 GB or $9.99 per month for 1 TB.

Key features :

1. Google integrated artificial intelligence into Google Photos. Thus, it could recognize visual objects and automatically save similar images in groups.

2. You can access the Google Photos app on Android and iOS or web apps.

3. The new auto white balance feature will automatically correct downloaded images.

4. Google recently added a book printing service to this photo hosting service.

Pros :

1. It has free unlimited storage with permission limit.

2. You can enjoy free features without watching ads.

3. Face recognition technology is great.

Cons of :

1. It doesn't have photo editing tools.

Photo Storage Top 5. Imgur

If you've used Reddit, you've probably heard of Imgur. This is the favorite image hosting service for Redditters.

Free Plan: Imgur allows users to store an unlimited number of images.

Key features :

1. You can create, edit and delete albums as you like.

2. This photo hosting tool will keep uploaded images forever until you request them to be deleted.

3. The Meme Generator function allows you to create image macros with custom words.

4. The GIFV function can convert GIF animated images to smaller WebM or MP4 size.

Pros :

1. You can enjoy unlimited storage.

2. It supports various image upload methods such as drag and drop, URL and others.

Cons :

1. The free account has a limit on the number of images uploaded, no more than 50 images per hour.

Photo storage top 6. OneDrive

One drive is a Microsoft photo storage option. If you are using Windows 8 or Windows 10, you can find a photo storage application built into the operating systems. If you have a Microsoft account, you can find different One Driver plans.

Free Plan: Microsoft announced unlimited cloud photo storage for Office 365 subscribers. And now you can get 5 GB of free storage in 2016 if you have a Microsoft account.

Paid plan : For paid plan, you can get $2 per month for 50 GB paid plan instead of previous offers. It will also no longer allow you to earn free storage.

Photo storage space 7. iCloud

Like the One Driver photo storage plan for Windows, iCloud Photo Library is Apple's cloud-based photo storage service. You can access the service through the Photos app on iOS, Mac, or on the web, where you can view and organize your photos.

Free plan : Most iDevices users are familiar with 5 GB of free storage. It should be much smaller than other photo storage sites or photo storage apps.

Paid plan : iCloud provides a monthly subscription to various photo storage services for $0.99 for 50 GB, $2.99 ​​for 200 GB, $9.99 for 1 TB, and $19.99 for 2 TB.

Photo Storage Top 8. Amazon Prime Photos

Amazon Prime Photo is a powerful photo storage application that allows you to connect your library to third party applications to order prints, edit photos or create photo gifts. The online photo storage service is part of Amazon Cloud Drive. Learn more about Amazon's photo storage plans.

Free plan : Online photo storage service provides unlimited photo storage and 5 GB for videos with a Prime subscription. If you need to upload video files, there is a 2 GB limit per video file.

Paid plan : Once you get a paid plan with no photo storage limit, you can try a 3-month trial first. And then you can enjoy $3/year without a subscription.

Photo storage space 9. ThisLife

If you are not familiar with the This Life photo storage application, you should know its manufacturer, the well-known photo printing service Shutterfly. You can import and upload photos to ThisLife, then organize them into albums (called stories), crop them, or share them.

Free plan : Photo storage software provides unlimited downloads of any number of images for free. But you can't upload videos to ThisLife with a free plan.

Paid Plan : To upload videos to ThisLife you need an annual subscription with 60 GB for $20/year, 30 GB for $50/year, unlimited videos for $140/year.

Photo storage Top 10. SmugMug

SmugMug is a professional site for storing and sharing photos. This photo sharing service offers editing, printing and selling photos online. SmugMug can also increase the visibility of your work. And here are the different SmugMug photo storage plans.

Paid Plan: Unlimited downloads come standard with every SmugMug plan with all the tools you need to create a beautiful photo site, easily share and order personalized prints and gifts.

Basic plan has a monthly subscription fee of $3.34, a meal plan of $5 per month, a portfolio plan of $12.5 per month, and a business plan of $25 per month.

Photo Storage Top 11. Box

Box is a professional photo storage application with many great business features, including file sharing and privacy control. What's more, you can also connect to Salesforce and NetSuite to easily save documents to Box. And then you can get more details to know more details as below.

Free Plan : Compared to other photo storage apps, you have a 10 GB free storage limit for all photos and a 250 MB file size limit for the Box free plan.

Paid plan : There are three types of photo storage plans. Personal Paid Pro Plan for $15/month. The business plans have $6/month for the starter and $17/month for the business plan and individual enterprise plan.

Bonus Tips: 2 Other Ways to Store Photos

In addition to storage apps and websites, you can use the following two ways to store photos.

1. Social media

After posting a photo on social networks, you and your friends can access the images on the Internet. When you save images on social media, your fans can recognize you in seconds. If you often share pictures of your life on social media, you can view past moments on your timeline. Facebook is the most popular social network for saving images. Of course, you can save photos to Twitter or Google Plus instead. If you are a photographer, you can upload photos to Flickr or Instagram.

1. You can add tags to photos saved on the Facebook timeline. And then you can search for images.

2. Associate photo saving with events. Just imagine if you could add images to your birthday party and then everyone viewing the event would be able to view the images.

3. Facebook also provides features for editing photos or creating a scrapbook to save photos.

4. What's more, you can find many third-party software to upload saved photos to social networks with one click.

If you are ready to share your memories with others, you can store your photos on Facebook or other social networks. But when you sync photos to social networks, personal information can leak out.

2. Hard drives

Hard drives are the traditional way to store photos. If you have old photos, you can scan them digitally. After that, you can save them to your hard drives. You can use your PC or Mac with various photo editing programs to manage them. You can also save images to social networks, cloud services or other ways directly from your hard drive. This is the most commonly used method for saving photos.

1. As for saving photos to the hard disk, you don't need to worry about storage space or problem.

2. You can find several photo editing tools to get the best photo quality or even enlarge images.

3. If you need to sync photos, share photos, or edit photos, you can first save the images to your PC or Mac's hard drive.

4. Easily save photos to your hard drive. You only need to connect your device to your computer.

Most users will backup photos to their hard drive. Of course, there are also portable hard drives. If you have a limited number of images, you can also save them to USB.

Wrapped

Here we present 11 photo storage apps, websites, two additional ways, and give you some tips on photo storage. Find what you like and keep your precious photos safe today.