Yesterday afternoon in the office, one of my coworkers asked me (paraphrasing) how I back up my photos so that everything isn’t only in iCloud, and what I would recommend that she do. And, because I’m a geek (and a bit extra at times), instead of just sending her my recommendations, I decided to turn this into a full blog post that I can point others to in the future. 😁

My Photo Workflow + Backup Strategy

So first off: how do I manage my photos? The answer has changed some over the years, but my current system is designed around the Apple Photos/iCloud system, both on my Mac and my iPhone. As you’ll see, I’m not entirely comfortable putting all of my eggs in one basket, and so I have backups outside of the Apple ecosystem, but that’s where my day-to-day photo library lives. All photos that I take on my iPhone are automatically synced, and any photo that I take with my big camera, or that I scan in via one of my photo scanners (for old family photos) goes into iCloud first.

Once the photos are into iCloud, then the rest of my strategy kicks in. I back up photos three separate ways currently:

• Full backup of my Photos library via Backblaze on my Mac (where I have Photos set to download originals)
• Backup via the Google Photos app on my iPhone to Google Photos, with settings set to “maintain original quality”
• Backup via Immich on my iPhone to Immich running on my TrueNAS server, which is in turn backed up to Backblaze B2

Let’s break those down a bit.

First up - Photos on my Mac, backed up to Backblaze. When I made the decision to center my photo workflow around Apple Photos, I knew that I wanted to also back up my Apple Photos library, as that’s where the bulk of my efforts take place. The simplest way to have an offsite backup of both my Mac and my Photos library was to use Backblaze, and so I added a full Mac backup to my strategy ($9.99/month). Because I have Photos set to download originals to my Mac, every photo in my library is stored on my Mac at full original quality, and that (along with my library metadata) gets backed up to the Backblaze servers on a set schedule.

Next, Google Photos. I used to use Google Photos more heavily in the past, especially when I was running an Android phone, but when I moved back to iPhone, I also moved my photo library away from Google. At this point, it’s my “backup of last resort,” effectively. I have my settings set to backup from my iPhone to Google Photos at full quality, though I maintain a healthy skepticism about Google’s app settings, as spot checks have revealed to me that some files are not the same size as the originals. However, it’s another low-cost location to back my photos up to.

And third, I have an Immich instance set up on my home TrueNAS server, which I have my full library (via my iPhone and the Immich iOS app) syncing to. From all of my testing, this does in fact capture photos at original quality and file type, and is probably what I would choose to switch to if for some reason Apple Photos ever goes away (whether because I left, or because Apple killed the service). I then have my Immich library backing up to Backblaze B2 nightly, so I have another offsite copy of all of my original files.

My Family’s Photo Workflow + Backup Strategy

Years ago, my family used Google Photos much the same way I did, but in the early 2020s, when I switched back to iPhone, I brought my family along with me, which meant that their photos were split between some old folders on local desktops, their Google Photos library, and an iCloud Photos library. Instead of paying for multiple solutions, my dad and I made the decision to set up a NAS at my parents’ house, which would become their primary photo backup target. For that purpose, we selected a 4-bay Synology NAS, and I have each of their iPhones (their primary picture-taking devices) set up with the Synology Photos app, which periodically syncs to their NAS. The NAS is in turn backed up to Backblaze B2, which provides an offsite backup in the event of a hardware failure.

Recommendations to Others

First up: if you’re in the Apple ecosystem, by far the best first thing you can do is pay for enough iCloud storage to sync your photos between your iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Since iCloud is a sync service rather than a backup solution (meaning deletions sync across all devices), the best way to preserve everything you’ve done with your library is to have a Mac with a large enough SSD (internal or external) to download all originals, and then pay to back your Mac up to Backblaze.

For the slightly more intensive route, my next recommendation would be to set up a Synology NAS for yourself (preferably 4-bay), and use the Synology Photos app to back your photos up to your own NAS. It’s entirely up to you if you want to manage your photos in Synology, or just use it as a backup target, but it’s a still semi-inexpensive way to have a local copy under your control. For bonus points, set that to back up offsite to something like Backblaze or AWS S3 as well.

If, like me, you’re willing to do some extra work to host your own server, my “advanced” recommendation is to set up Immich the way I have, either on a Linux server or TrueNAS, and then back that library up offsite to Backblaze (or an equivalent). That strategy has the least vendor lock-in, and gives you arguably the best long-term strategy if you don’t want to use Apple or Google’s photo management tools for your libraries.

Conclusion

And so, those are my recommendations as of December 2025! Will my opinions change in the future? Of course - my recommendations a year ago wouldn’t look exactly as they do today, and I’d be fooling myself if I thought they wouldn’t change again. Hopefully that is helpful though, and if my workflow or my recommendations change heavily in the future, I’ll either update this post, or add another blog entry that supersedes this one.