Best Free Photo Backup 2026: 7 Options Compared

Backing up photos for free comes down to how many gigabytes you have and where you are willing to keep them. Google Photos, iCloud and Proton give a small allowance that shared storage fills quickly, so a family phone library usually outgrows it within a year or two. Cloud lockers such as pCloud and OneDrive follow the same pattern. The alternative is to run the backup yourself: Immich and PhotoPrism are free to self-host and have no storage cap beyond your own disk, but you need a home server, a plan for off-site copies and the patience to apply updates. A sensible setup for most people is one free cloud service for the newest photos plus a second copy somewhere you control, because a single copy in a single account is not a backup. Check the storage figure on the page before you start the first upload, since free allowances are shared with email and documents on some services, and look at how each tool exports your pictures, because getting them out later is the part that tends to be awkward.

Google Photos

Free tier gives 15 GB per Google account, shared with Drive and Gmail, so photos compete with email for space. Paid storage starts at $1.99.

Price: Free (15 GB per Google account, shared with Drive and Gmail); paid from $1.99 per month (Basic, 100 GB, billed monthly; 2 TB is $9.99) (Google Photos pricing, checked 2026-10-23).

Platforms and license: Web, Android, iOS. Proprietary.

Best for: Android phones with a small library.

Compare: Google Photos alternatives

iCloud

Only 5 GB is free, which fills fast on an iPhone, but backup is built into the system. Paid storage starts at $0.99.

Price: Free (5 GB free); paid from $0.99 per per month, iCloud+ 50 GB plan (200 GB $2.99, 2 TB $9.99) (iCloud pricing, checked 2026-10-23).

Platforms and license: iOS, macOS, Windows, Web. Proprietary.

Best for: iPhone users who want automatic backup.

Compare: iCloud alternatives

Proton

The free plan includes up to 5 GB of Drive with end-to-end encryption, plus 1 GB of mail. Small, but privacy-focused.

Price: Free (Free plan with 1 GB of Mail, up to 5 GB of Drive, 1 encrypted email address and 3 personal calendars); paid from $3.99 per month, billed annually (Mail Plus) (Proton pricing, checked 2026-10-22).

Platforms and license: Web, iOS, Android. Proprietary hosted service.

Best for: Privacy-minded users with few photos.

OneDrive

Has a free tier, but check Microsoft's plan page for the current free storage amount. Check it before relying on the phone camera upload.

Price: Free (OneDrive pricing, checked 2026-10-23).

Platforms and license: Web, Windows, macOS, iOS, Android. Proprietary.

Best for: Windows users already on Microsoft.

Compare: OneDrive alternatives

pCloud

Check the site for the free storage amount; the paid plans listed are lifetime plans starting at $219, so compare carefully.

Price: Free; paid from $219 per one-time, Premium 500 GB lifetime plan (Premium Plus 2 TB lifetime is $499) (pCloud pricing, checked 2026-10-23).

Platforms and license: Web, Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android. Proprietary.

Best for: People who prefer a lifetime plan later.

Compare: pCloud alternatives

Immich

Free to self-host under AGPL-3.0 with phone auto-upload; you supply the server and storage, so the cost is hardware and your time.

Price: Free (Free self-hosted; you supply the server and storage) (Immich pricing, checked 2026-10-23).

Platforms and license: Self-hosted server, Web, Mobile app. AGPL-3.0 (open source).

Project activity: 117.4k GitHub stars · latest release v3.3.5 (Oct 21, 2026) · last commit Oct 27, 2026

Best for: Self-hosters replacing Google Photos.

PhotoPrism

The free community edition runs via Docker under AGPL-3.0; paid memberships add features such as interactive maps. It organizes photos already on your own disk.

Price: Free (Free community edition run via Docker; paid memberships add extra features such as interactive world maps) (PhotoPrism pricing, checked 2026-10-23).

Platforms and license: Self-hosted (Docker on Mac, Linux, Windows), Web (PWA). AGPL-3.0 (open source).

Project activity: 40.4k GitHub stars · latest release 261007-65faaae5d (Oct 7, 2026) · last commit Oct 27, 2026

Best for: Existing photo folders on a home server.

Which one to pick

• You have a few thousand phone photos and no server: Google Photos
• You use an iPhone and want zero setup: iCloud
• You have a home server and want no storage limit: Immich
• You want encrypted storage and only a small library: Proton