USB backup, original quality, and no-cloud privacy.

Any standard USB drive. On iPhone use a Lightning or USB-C drive (depending on your model); on Android use a USB-C drive or a USB-A drive with an OTG adapter. Drives formatted as exFAT (recommended), FAT32, APFS, or HFS+ work out of the box; NTFS is read-only.

Photos and videos at original quality, Live Photos, screenshots, documents and files from your phone's Files app, and any albums or folders you choose. Photos back up as JPEG, HEIC, PNG, GIF, WebP, ProRAW, and DNG; video as MOV, MP4, ProRes, and Cinematic.

No. Files are copied byte for byte — HEIC, ProRAW, ProRes, 4K, and Cinematic all land untouched. There's no downscaling and no re-encoding.

Yes. A Live Photo's still and motion clip are kept together as a real Live Photo, never split apart. Every file keeps its original EXIF metadata — capture date, location, and camera data — and your album and folder structure is mirrored on the drive.

Each file is written atomically — either the whole file makes it or it doesn't. When you reconnect, VaultDrive resumes from where it stopped and skips files that were already copied.

Yes. Each device backs up to its own labeled folder on the drive, tracked separately — so a whole family can share one drive without mixing photos.

Every item in your summary and log is labeled, so nothing is a mystery. Skipped — already backed up means an exact copy is already on the drive (incremental backup and duplicate detection avoid re-copying). iCloud only means the original wasn't on the device yet. Deleted from device means it was backed up before but has since been removed from the phone, and interrupted means the session stopped before that file finished — it's picked up on the next run.

A failed file is one that didn't pass VaultDrive's checks: after each copy it confirms the file exists on the drive and that its size matches the original. If a check fails it deletes the partial file and retries up to four times — immediately, then after 5, 30, and 120 seconds — before marking it failed and saving the reason in the log.

Yes. When a session finishes with failures, the summary shows a Retry Failed action that re-attempts just those files. VaultDrive can also re-verify a completed backup — re-checking every recorded file against what's actually on the connected drive — so anything missing or size-mismatched is surfaced and can be copied again.

Almost always it's the drive's format. FAT32 can't store a single file larger than 4 GB, and a long 4K or ProRes video can exceed that. Format the drive as exFAT — it works on Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS and has no practical size limit — and it'll copy fine. VaultDrive warns you before backup if a file is too big for the drive's format, and blocks a backup that wouldn't fit in the drive's free space.

No. VaultDrive transfers files directly between your phone and the connected USB drive over the cable. Nothing is sent to our servers or any cloud service, and nothing is scanned or analyzed. There's no account, no sign-up, and no telemetry.

On iPhone, if Optimize iPhone Storage is on (iOS Settings → Photos), your full-resolution originals live in iCloud and only smaller previews stay on the device. A real backup needs the original file, not the preview — so VaultDrive downloads iCloud originals before copying them. Anything still only in iCloud when a backup runs is marked "iCloud only" and shown on the home-screen banner, so nothing is silently missed.

It's an iOS setting (Settings → Photos → Optimize iPhone Storage) that saves space by keeping full-quality originals in iCloud and leaving lighter previews on the phone. The preview looks fine on screen but isn't the real file. If you use iCloud Photos and are low on storage, it's very likely on. You can turn it off in iOS Settings, or leave VaultDrive's Download from iCloud option on so originals are pulled down before backup.

Wi-Fi is recommended. Downloading originals from iCloud can move many gigabytes, and on cellular that can use up your data plan. VaultDrive keeps "Download over Wi-Fi only" on by default — turn it off to also download over cellular. While you're on cellular with Wi-Fi-only on, iCloud-only items are simply skipped and picked up automatically the next time you're on Wi-Fi.

iCloud downloads go through Apple's Photos and iCloud service, so their speed is set by your network and by Apple — not by VaultDrive. Apple can throttle or rate-limit how quickly originals come down, especially for very large libraries, and VaultDrive has no control over that. Backups that include iCloud originals take as long as the download takes; everything already on your device copies at full USB speed. If you're offline (Airplane Mode), iCloud-only items fail fast with a clear reason instead of hanging.

This is an Android limitation, not a VaultDrive issue. When any app copies a file to a USB drive, Android sets the file's date to the copy time and gives apps no reliable way to change it, so a file manager may show the backup time.

VaultDrive copies your media byte for byte, so nothing inside the file changes: the original capture date (EXIF "Date taken"), camera info, and GPS stay intact, and VaultDrive also records the original date in its backup index. To confirm, open a backed-up file on a computer and check Properties → Details (Windows) or Get Info (Mac) for "Date taken" / "Date/Time Original". This only affects Android — on iPhone the file dates are preserved.

No — it's a different kind of backup. VaultDrive saves your photos, videos, and selected files as plain, openable files on a drive you own. It doesn't back up your whole device — app data, messages, system settings, and installed apps are part of an iCloud or Finder/iTunes device backup, not VaultDrive. Many people use both: iCloud or Finder for the device, and VaultDrive for a private, offline copy of their memories.

VaultDrive is free to download and try, so you can start backing up right away — no account, no card. There's a free tier, and a single one-time Pro purchase unlocks unlimited backups plus the advanced tools. There's no subscription and no recurring charge, ever. You provide your own USB drive. See the pricing section for details.

The free tier lets you back up up to 200 files / 2 GB at original quality, with Live Photos, metadata, and folders preserved.

Pro (a one-time purchase) removes that cap and adds incremental backup, a free-up-space helper, and background scan. On Android, Pro also adds WhatsApp media backup and biometric App Lock — with new premium features added over time.

Yes. You can select individual albums, date ranges, file types, or specific files. With Pro's incremental backup, the next time you back up to the same drive only new or changed files are copied.

VaultDrive is available in 15+ languages, including English, Español, Français, Deutsch, 日本語, 한국어, 中文, हिन्दी, and العربية.

Visit our Contact page for support. Purchases, upgrades, and refunds are handled by Apple and Google under their store policies.