Copying your photos to an external drive as well as the cloud gives you a second, independent copy that doesn’t depend on one company or one internet connection — and it’s worth doing even if cloud backup is already switched on.
What you need
- An external hard drive or USB drive with enough free space
- A computer to connect it to
- Your photos, either already on the computer or accessible through your cloud backup’s download option
Cloud and a drive protect against different things
Cloud backup and a local external drive protect against different things: cloud backup survives a house fire or a lost phone, while a local drive survives a cloud account being locked, hacked, or a provider going out of business. Having both is what actually makes a photo collection safe.
How to set up the second copy
- Work out where your full-resolution photos currently live. That might be on your computer already, or it might mean downloading your library from Google Photos, iCloud, or wherever it’s backed up, using that service’s export or download-album option.
- Connect the external drive to your computer. Plug it in and confirm your computer recognises it and shows how much free space is available.
- Copy your photos across. Drag your photo folders onto the drive, or use your computer’s backup tool to copy them. For a large library, this can take a while — let it finish rather than unplugging partway through.
- Check the copy against the original. Compare the number of files and the total size on the drive against the source. They should roughly match; a big gap suggests something didn’t copy.
- Store the drive safely, and repeat this periodically. Keep the drive somewhere it won’t be lost alongside your computer or phone in the same incident, and plan to repeat the copy every few months so it doesn’t go stale.
Check the drive actually has your photos
Open a handful of photos directly from the external drive, spread across different dates in your collection, and confirm they open properly and aren’t corrupted or blank.
If you’re not sure what’s already backed up
If the copy seems incomplete or very slow, check the drive has enough free space and try copying a smaller batch first to rule out one problem file. A drive that keeps disconnecting mid-copy may need a different cable or port.
Next step
For very large or important collections, it’s worth thinking about how far this second copy needs to travel to actually be independent — see Keep a second, independent copy of your most irreplaceable photos.
Sources and date checked
General backup practice based on how cloud storage and local external drives each handle failure differently; not tied to one specific product. Checked 22 September 2026.