Cloud Hosting

Now that most of us have extremely high-quality cameras on our phones, were documenting more of our daily lives than at any time in history.

Saving all of those photos and videos for posterity takes up a lot of space in the form of computer memory. Thats where cloud storage comes in.

In this article, well take a look at where you can get free cloud storage and how much you can get without spending a single dollar.

When you shoot photos and videos on your phone, those images take the form of data. In many cases, people accumulate so much of that data that they run out of memory on their phones and even their home computers or laptops.

With cloud storage, you can upload that data to a third party, which will then host it in the cloud.

The cloud is basically a collection of data centers that could be located anywhere. Those data centers can host far more data than any person could even fathom storing locally.

For easy reference, this chart shows our top free cloud storage picks and how much space you get from each. All of them offer additional storage for a fee, so weve included that information as well.

*1 TB = 1,000 GB

Here are the cloud storage options that let you store the most photos and videos for free:

We lead off our list with Google Drive, which offers a whopping 15 GB of free cloud storage just for signing up for a Google account. For perspective, thats enough space to hold around 9,000 photographs, on average.

Google Drive allows you to upload, share and access your files on any device, from anywhere in the world.

Google Photos is another cloud storage option worth checking out. With a free account, you can store up to 15 GB of photos and videos. You can also upgrade to 100 GB for $1.99/month with Google One.

MediaFire lets you store up to 10 GB of any kind of file for free, allows you to access the files from anywhere and share them via email, link or social media.

Downloads of those files are ad-supported, though. So if you find advertisements annoying, thats something to consider.

pCloud offers 10 GB of free storage and claims to be used by people working for Nike, Twitter, Coke and dozens of other high-profile companies.

Tech behemoth Microsoft offers 5 GB of free cloud storage through its OneDrive Basic plan. The plan promises a lightning-fast search of your files and a premium web-based experience when you access your files with Office apps.

Sync.com offers 5 GB of storage for free and promises that you can access your files from anywhere, using any device.

Sync claims to have end-to-end encryption to protect your privacy and offers other security features like the ability to control permissions for access to your files.

Amazon Drive has what might be the best free storage option going, but theres a catch: You have to be a member of Amazon Prime to qualify for it.

If you are, you can store an unlimited number of photos and 5 GB of video at no additional cost.

Apples iCloud is another free storage option that comes with a catch. If youre the owner of an Apple product and have an Apple ID, you automatically get 5 GB of free cloud space.

Without that Apple ID, you can still sign up for 1 GB of free space.

There are a lot of services out there that will provide you free cloud storage space for your photos and videos.

If you take advantage of one or more of these options and use them in combination, you could have all the space you need without shelling out a dime.

More here:
7 Best Free Cloud Storage Options in 2021 - Clark Howard