iCloud

Octavio wants to make a switch to iOS, but he wants to know how he can do backup while on the road and not use iTunes? He wants to also backup his Windows machine with the same option. Leo says that if you want a "trust no one cloud backup" then there really isn't going to be a solution. But a local backup is your best bet for that, and that means a NAS (network-attached storage). Leo likes Synology. It'll backup every machine, except Octavio's iPad. Your only option there is to iCloud directly or through iTunes.

James has a large family that records many videos, and he's run out of storage in the cloud. He can't buy anymore iCloud to store everyone's movies and music. Leo says that James has transitioned to the enterprise-grade needs. Especially for backups. Leo says maybe just creating a duplicate Synology NAS off site and have it Sync. That way he can have as much storage he needs, rather than paying for it in the Cloud. It's also far more practical, since it won't take up bandwidth. Carbonite will even send a hard drive to back up and ship to them for storage. But that isn't readily available.

Tony has used up 4.9GB of his iCloud storage and he doesn't know how he's used all that. Leo says it's likely his phone backup. He can go to iCloud.com and login and see what's there. Chances are, if it isn't a phone backup, then it's likely all of his photos, which get automatically uploaded to the cloud. But he's wondering why it saves all his text messages and deleted email. Leo says he can probably change the mail settings to use less space. He should look in his email settings and choose things like "don't save attachments", etc.

Bruce wants to know why he's being asked for his iCloud password all the time on his iPhone 8. Leo isn't sure why this happens, but it's happened to him as well. It does go away eventually. Leo thinks it's just a bug. Leo suggests going into settings, and re-entering his passwords there.

Roy uses Google Drive and DropBox, but he's having issues with syncing folders to his other services. Leo says to check which folders are synced in the settings. He can also look at a third party service like ODrive. It will do all the syncing and will even merge all of his backup options except for Apple iCloud. He can also use a network attached storage device, which will also have a sync utility.

Corrine is having issues with her Apple ID. Leo says that her iCloud account and her iTunes account can be different. Or she could have them be the same. She'll then need to have a password that goes with it. All of her app and website passwords can be kept in the Apple Keychain, but she'll have to be on the same account in order for it to work across her devices. She'll have to be sure to go into her iCloud and Keychain settings and make sure they're all turned on.

George is running out of room on his iPhone. How can he make space without deleting his photos and videos? Leo says the first thing to do is turn on iCloud to backup your photo storage. Also, use the replace photos with thumbnails option so that the originals aren't left on your phone. You may need to buy extra iCloud space though. So the other option is Google Photos. Download that app and backup your photos and videos to Google Photos. You get 15GB of uncompressed space, or unlimited high resolution space. All for free.

John is frustrated that he can't delete the pictures on his phone without deleting them from iCloud. Leo says that if he selects "optimize phone storage" in settings, it will delete it on the phone without deleting it on iCloud. But he'll have to select "Keep Originals" on his Mac so it doesn't delete there.

Manny wants to store his photos in the cloud, but he wants to have a better quality image stored locally. Leo says that iCloud always keeps the higher quality image in the cloud. In Google Photos, he can turn off "optimize photos" and it will keep the higher quality locally as well. But Leo says he really won't see the difference.

Adam bought an iMac from a private seller. It still had Apple Care and he had it transferred to his name. He's worried that there was a keylogger on it and his credit card was compromised. Leo says that unless he wiped the computer himself, he won't know if it's compromised or not. Leo says that it's probably not the Mac, but just in case, Adam should wipe the drive himself. It's really easy to wipe an iMac drive and reinstall the OS. It could be that Adam's iCloud account has been compromised.