The Wired writer Mat Honan got hacked and lost all of his precious photos and videos of his daughter because he didn’t make a backup.

I quickly realized after reading that article that if someone were to wipe my iPhone, iPad and MacBook Pro, I would lose a lot of very important data. I do backups regularly using Time Machine and I have iCloud Backup enabled on my iPhone and iPad, but because my data is fragmented all over the place, I would still lose a lot of stuff. ..

This article will walk you through how to properly backup all your iPhone/iPad/MacBook data, including photos and videos. By following these steps, you can ensure that your data is safe and secure in the event of an emergency.

Method 1 – iTunes/iCloud

If you’re using iCloud, you can choose to back up your device to the iCloud account or to your computer. If you’re using iTunes, you can choose to back up your device to your computer or to the iTunes Store.

This will backup your device to iTunes on your local computer. If you have iCloud backup turned on, you can still locally backup your device using this method. I highly recommend doing a backup in iTunes also as I’ve tried to restore an iCloud backup before and it didn’t work. iCloud is nice, but it’s the cloud and the cloud can act finicky sometimes.

Back up your data regularly to ensure that you have a copy of your information in case of a disaster. ..

If you have iCloud backup enabled on your device, you can turn it on by going to Settings and tapping on iCloud and then tap on iCloud Backup.

If you don’t want to wait for the device to backup on its own, turn on the device and then use one of the following methods to back up your data:

  • iCloud: If you don’t want to wait for the device to backup on its own, you can manually perform a backup to iCloud. Make sure your device is connected to a power source and WiFi before starting the backup.

If you backed up your devices this way, you have to be careful if you delete a single video or photo and want to restore it. If your device is wiped completely, then you can restore the whole thing from backup.

Option 2: Enable iCloud Photo Library To enable iCloud Photo Library, open the Apple menu and select System Preferences. In the Photos preferences, select iCloud Photo Library. If you have not already set up iCloud Backup, do so now. If you have enabled iCloud Photo Library, your photos and videos will be backed up automatically when you turn off your computer or when you delete a file from your computer.

Method 2 – iCloud Photo Library

If you primarily take photos and videos with your iPhone, it’s worth the money to use iCloud Photo Library. By default, Apple is stingy and only gives you 5 GB of free iCloud storage. This is not nearly enough if you use your iPhone as your primary camera. ..

iCloud is a great way to store your photos, music, and videos. It’s affordable and has a lot of storage.

If you have iCloud Photo Library enabled on your device, you can access it by going to settings, tapping on your name, tapping on iCloud and then tap on Photos.

If you have a lot of space on your device for storing all that media, you can turn on Optimize iPhone Storage. Otherwise, you can check to see if you have enough space on your device to store all that media. ..

Apple has announced that all devices that are signed in with their iCloud ID will be able to view all the videos and pictures. This is great if you have a Mac, where you can also use the Photos app in conjunction with iCloud Photo Library.

Method 3 – Photos App

The Photos app is a great tool for managing your library if you already own a Mac. It comes in handy for those folks who still want to take higher quality pictures and videos with a dedicated camera, but want to be able view all of that in their iCloud Photo Library too.

You can set up iCloud Photo Library so that whenever you connect your device to your Mac, it will automatically import all of the photos and videos. After the import, you can choose whether to keep them on the device or delete them. If iCloud Photo Library is enabled, all of the imported media will be uploaded and visible across all your devices.

In the Preferences window, select the iCloud Photo Library check box and then click on the OK button.

If you have a large hard drive and can accommodate your entire iCloud Photo Library on the local hard drive, I recommend choosing Optimize Mac Storage to this Mac. In case something goes horribly wrong with iCloud, you’ll have a full backup of everything on your local device.

Photos is a great app, but I don’t like that it stores everything in proprietary Apple format. I used to love using Google Picasa, but that hasn’t been updated in years.

Method 4 – Google Photos/Cloud Storage

The last method I use is to backup to Google Photos. You can download the Google Photos iPhone and iPad apps and have your photos and videos automatically uploaded. Personally, I use both Google Photos and iCloud to create two copies of all my photos and videos. It may seem like overkill, but I’m just overly paranoid.

On Google Photos, tap on the three horizontal lines, then on the gear icon. Tap on Backup & Sync and turn it on. It will then start syncing everything in your iCloud Photo Library up to Google Photos. If you already have a large amount of media in your photo library, Google Photos will sync the entire library.

The big problem with this is that it will force your device to re-download all the content from iCloud so that it can upload it to Google Photos. This means your device will run out of space for a while until the upload it finished.

It can be inconvenient at first, but it’s been very useful for me on many occasions. I have taken videos and they have been deleted by my iPhone-loving daughter! That’s why I make sure it gets backed up in multiple locations just in case.

Google Photos and Google Drive are two of the most popular ways to backup your photos and videos. With Google Drive, you can sync your entire photo library to another computer or even a network device like a NAS. iCloud also has a Windows program for syncing everything down to a PC, but I’m not a huge fan of how it works.

Google Photos is great for storing photos and videos, but you can use any cloud service you want. Dropbox, OneDrive, and other services all work the same way, so if you are already tied into a service, continue using that one. What method do you use to backup your iPhone/iPad photos and videos? Let us know in the comments. ..