How to Keep Your Phone From Sending Your Photos to the Cloud

Automatic photo upload apps have freed us from a cumbersome world of USB cables and memory cards, and generally speaking it's great to have your pictures sent to the Web automatically. Sometimes, however, it's not so great.

Even if you're not a celebrity with nude pictures to hide, you might not want all of your snaps duplicated over dozens of platforms. Here's how to do a check-up on where your photos are going automatically and block off any services you don't want to use.

Android and iOS

Both Android and iOS have their own auto-upload features that you may have activated when you first set up your devices. In Android, Google+ does the heavy lifting (though there are rumors Google Photos will soon be a standalone service). To check if this feature is active, head into the Google Photos app and open the Settings option from the menu. Tap Auto-Backup to take stock of what's being backed up and change the settings if required (you can opt to exclude local folders for example).

 

It's simpler on iOS, where you can find the auto-backup option on the iCloud page of Settings. Tap Photos then disable the My Photo Stream and Photo Sharing options if you don't want your images disappearing into the ether without your say-so.

It's worth emphasizing that these backup services keep photos private by default, but again you might want to take more control over which files make it off your device, private or not.

Original post:  http://fieldguide.gizmodo.com/how-to-keep-your-phone-from-sending-photos-to-the-cloud-1630014009/+ericlimer