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I have an iPhone full of pictures and videos (approx 80 GB). I want to export them to free up space (and have a backup if possible). I am looking for a solution, e.g. a software running on Windows or a personal webserver or a cloud, sorting by preferred option. The point is I want to keep all or most of the following useful features provided by iPhone Photos:

  • People (face recognition)
  • Places
  • Search by date
  • Live photos
  • Panoramas
  • Albums

In other words, I want to be able to "browse" just like I do inside my iPhone. I hoped iTunes could support it. I know I can buy iCloud space ($3/month) but I'm looking for a free alternative.

EDIT

Let me clarify even more: I want to know how do you deal with this problem. How do you free up space without losing Albums, live photos, search by places, etc.? Is iCloud the only solution?

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  • I'd find it hard to find a cloud service that gives you 80GB free. Either an iPhone backup would do it - or iCloud, which is pretty cheap considering the storage they give you, and it works seamlessly with your iPhone keeping all the photos stored in the cloud while keeping a low res version on your device, which frees loads of space while allowing you to view them on your phone as if they're still there.
    – Nathan
    Commented Jun 12, 2020 at 9:53
  • @Nathan As I told, I am aware of iCloud. Thank you for suggesting it, I am seriously considering it, I agree it's not too expensive. But I also cannot believe that there is no alternative... maybe buying a Mac? Not that I'm going to, just to know. I cannot be the only one with this question in mind. How do you free up space without losing Albums, live photos, search by places, etc.?
    – Kar.ma
    Commented Jun 13, 2020 at 8:03
  • Yeh that's the thing with Apple I'm afraid, once your in their ecosystem, there's no way of getting out of using other features :(
    – Nathan
    Commented Jun 13, 2020 at 17:22
  • Just in case anyone should wonder... I ended up buying iCloud. Which turned out to be a much harder way than I hoped since I had to keep at least 600-700 MB free all the time until the upload finished. It took a couple days. I'm suprised it does not start freeing up your space from the beginning, but only at the end of the process. However, I would pick the same choice again.
    – Kar.ma
    Commented Jul 16, 2020 at 16:15

1 Answer 1

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In order to keep all the functionality you mention, your options are really only to have either a Mac with the built-in Photos app, or an iPad or similar device that you could offload your content to.

As far as I know, there's no free software that provides these features in exactly the same way as Photos on the iPhone, but on a webserver or on Windows.

You could export your Photos to a Windows PC and then use any PC photo management software, but the feature list would vary from program to program. For example the only free, Windows-based photo management software I know that does face recognition is mylioX. It doesn't do it exactly the same way as Apple, nor does it has the same list of features.

Here's Apple's guide to exporting your photos to Windows or Mac computers:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201302#importpc

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