How to back up photos and contacts on your phone

This guide is for anyone who has ever worried about what would happen if their phone was lost, stolen or simply stopped working. By the time you finish reading, you'll know how to make sure your photos and contacts are saved somewhere safe, automatically, without having to think about it again. It covers iPhones and Android phones, and you don't need to be especially confident with technology to follow the steps.

Step 1: Work out what kind of phone you have

Before anything else, you need to know whether you have an iPhone (made by Apple) or an Android phone (made by Samsung, Google, Motorola or dozens of other manufacturers).

The easiest way to tell: if the back of your phone has a bitten-apple logo, it's an iPhone. If it says Samsung, it's an Android. The backup process is different for each, so getting this right saves confusion later.

Once you know which you have, jump to Step 2 for iPhones, or Step 3 for Android phones. If you want to use Google Photos on an iPhone (which is a perfectly sensible choice, especially if your family uses Android phones), read both.

Step 2: Turn on iCloud backup on an iPhone

iCloud is Apple's own storage service. Every new iPhone comes with 5GB of free space, which is enough for contacts, messages and a modest number of photos. If you have years of pictures, you may need to pay for more storage. At the time of writing, 50GB costs 79p a month and 200GB costs £2.49 a month, billed through Apple.

To switch it on:

1. Open the Settings app (the grey icon with cogs on it).
2. Tap your name at the very top of the screen.
3. Tap iCloud.
4. Tap iCloud Backup.
5. Make sure the toggle next to "Back Up This iPhone" is green (switched on).
6. Tap Back Up Now to run your first backup straight away.

Your phone will now back up automatically whenever it is plugged in to charge, connected to Wi-Fi, and locked. Most people's phones meet all three conditions overnight.

Backing up contacts on an iPhone is slightly separate. While you're in the iCloud menu, scroll down and check that the toggle next to Contacts is also green. This saves your address book to iCloud independently of the photo backup, which matters if you ever switch to a new phone.

Step 3: Set up Google Photos on an Android phone

Google Photos is free to download and gives you 15GB of storage at no cost, shared across your Google account. It works on Android phones and, if you prefer it, on iPhones too.

If you have a Samsung phone, it may already have a Samsung-branded gallery app, but I'd suggest setting up Google Photos alongside it. Google's service is better established and your photos will still be accessible if you ever move away from Samsung.

To set it up:

1. Open the Play Store (the colourful triangle icon) and search for Google Photos. Install it. (It may already be installed; check your apps first.)
2. Open Google Photos and sign in with your Google account. If you don't have one, you can create one for free at accounts.google.com.
3. Once you're signed in, tap your profile picture (top right corner) and then Photos settings.
4. Tap Backup and switch it on.
5. Under "Backup quality", choose Storage saver unless you specifically want the original resolution files. Storage saver quality is perfectly fine for viewing, printing, and sharing.

Google Photos will now upload your photos and videos whenever you're connected to Wi-Fi. You can also allow it to use mobile data, though that can eat into your data allowance.

For contacts on Android: Open the Settings app, search for "Accounts", and check that your Google account has "Contacts" sync turned on. This means your contact list is saved to Google and will appear automatically on any new Android phone you sign into.

Step 4: Back up to a computer as a second copy

Cloud storage is convenient, but having a copy on your own computer as well is sensible. Think of it as a belt-and-braces approach. If Google or Apple ever had a serious problem (rare, but not impossible), or if you forget to renew a paid subscription, your photos are still there on your hard drive.

On a Windows PC:

1. Connect your phone to the computer using its charging cable.
2. On your iPhone, a message will appear asking if you "Trust This Computer". Tap Trust.
3. Open File Explorer (the folder icon in the taskbar). Your phone should appear as a device in the left-hand panel.
4. Open it and find the folder called DCIM (Digital Camera Images). Copy the photos you want to save into a folder on your computer.

On a Mac:

Apple makes this slightly tidier. Connect your iPhone with the cable, open the Photos app on your Mac, and it will offer to import your photos automatically. You can choose to import everything or just new photos since your last import.

For Android phones on a Mac, you'll need to download a free app called Android File Transfer from android.com/filetransfer first.

Doing this once every few months is more than enough for most people.

Step 5: Check that your backup is actually working

This is the step most people skip, and it's arguably the most important one. Setting up a backup and then never checking it is a bit like testing a smoke alarm once and assuming it'll work forever.

For iCloud: go to Settings, tap your name, then iCloud, then iCloud Backup. Underneath the toggle you'll see "Last successful backup:" followed by a date and time. If that was within the last day or two, you're fine. If it says "Never" or shows a date from months ago, something has gone wrong. The most common causes are a full iCloud storage, a poor Wi-Fi connection, or the phone not being plugged in overnight.

For Google Photos: open the app and tap your profile picture (top right). It will say either "Backup is on" with the date it last ran, or it will show a warning in orange or red. If there's a warning, tap it and it will explain the problem.

Getting into the habit of glancing at this once a month, perhaps when your phone is charging, takes about thirty seconds.

Step 6: What to do if you lose your phone

If the worst happens and your phone is lost or stolen, don't panic. If your backup was running properly, your photos and contacts aren't gone.

For iPhone users: sign into icloud.com on any computer or tablet, using your Apple ID and password. Your photos are there under the Photos section, and you can download them. When you get a new iPhone, signing in with your Apple ID during setup will restore everything.

For Android users: sign into photos.google.com from any browser to access your photos. A new Android phone will ask for your Google account during setup and will restore your contacts and, if you have Google Photos installed, offer to restore your photos too.

One extra step worth doing now, while your phone is safe: make sure you know your Apple ID password or Google account password. Write it down somewhere secure, not on your phone. A family member keeping a note of it is perfectly sensible. If you ever need to recover your account and you can't remember your password, the process can be frustrating, especially if you no longer have access to the email address you used to create the account.