Journal
Guides on private on-device AI, offline backup, and keeping your data on hardware you own.
On a plane, abroad, or off-grid, your cloud backup quietly stops. What still works with no connection, what doesn't, and how to keep your trip photos safe until you're back online.
A long phone-to-USB backup that stops partway is almost always one of a few causes. What happened to the files already copied, how to resume without starting over, and how to stop it happening again.
A phone-to-USB backup that crawls usually has one bottleneck: iCloud downloads, a slow drive, a USB 2 connection, or the phone pausing the app. How to find yours and what actually helps.
Most of the library copies fine, but some photos and videos don't. The cause is almost always one of a handful of things, and each has a simple fix.
A phone transfer moves your photos; it doesn't back them up. How to make an independent copy before you switch — including between iPhone and Android — and what to check before you wipe the old phone.
When a USB drive won't show up on an Android phone, the cause is almost always one of five things. Work through them in order, most likely first.
Nearly every Android phone can read and write a USB drive directly, thanks to USB OTG. What OTG is, what you need, how to find and remove the drive, and what you can do with it.
With iCloud Photos, many of your originals live in iCloud, not on your phone. Three ways to get them onto a USB drive without a computer, and what each is like for a whole library.
Yes — every iPhone since iOS 13 can read and write a USB drive through the Files app. Which cable or adapter you need, which formats work, what you can do with it, and what to try when the drive won't show up.
Without a computer, an iPhone backup has two halves: the device and the photo library. iCloud Backup covers the first and has a blind spot for the second. Here is how to cover both.