If you thought Flickr was just for photographers, think again–here’s how to work the system to your advantage and save space on your smartphone at the same time. Photo: Flickr
Early adopter or not, you’ve probably had your smartphone for a little while. Chances are you’re going to have it, or something like it, for the foreseeable future, which means pictures are going to start piling up. Flickr, though it may not be as cool as a 3D scanner, is going to be more useful.
If you, like me, are too lazy to back your phone up to a computer, services like iCloud and Dropbox work great as backup plans. I, however, finally went over my free 5 GB of iCloud storage and coughed up $20 a year for an additional 10 GB–It was easy. I was lazy–and now, boy do I feel dumb.
Flickr’s update for iOS 7 now offers auto-uploading—iCloud’s best feature. Take a picture with your iPhone’s camera, and Flickr will upload it to your account automagically—in full resolution. Don’t worry about internet stalkers, uploads are set to private by default. The best part: Flickr provides 1 TB of free storage. For those keeping track, that’s 1,000 GB, and it’ll free up you iCloud storage for important stuff like restoring your phone.
How to set it up:
1. After you download the app and open it up, you’ll need to turn on Auto Upload. Tap the blue and pink dot in the bottom right hand corner and find Auto Upload.
2. Pretty. Now tap “Turn ON Auto Upload.”
3. Flip the switch to green. If you get nervous about data usage, select Wi-Fi Only.
Your photos will thank you.
