Guides

Getting iPhone photos and files onto storage you own

These guides cover the parts that have nothing to do with any particular app: turning on SMB, creating the right account, finding your server's address, and knowing what a "copy" of a photo really contains. Where a free or built-in method does the job, they say so.

I make SMBDrop, so it appears in these guides, always with a note and alongside the alternatives.

• Best ways to back up iPhone photos to a NAS (2026)

  Nine ways to get iPhone photos onto a NAS, compared on price, accounts, originals and background backup. There's a disclosure, since I make one of them.

• How to back up an iPhone without iCloud

  Full-device backups versus photo backups, and every realistic method for both, from a Mac or PC to a NAS on your own network.

• How to back up iPhone photos to a Synology NAS

  Turn on SMB in DSM, create a shared folder and a user, and send originals from iPhone. Plus when Synology Photos is the better pick.

• How to send iPhone photos and files to Unraid or TrueNAS over SMB

  Export an SMB share and create a user on Unraid or TrueNAS SCALE, then connect from iPhone, with the permission fixes that usually trip people up.

• How to copy files from an iPhone to a Windows shared folder

  Share a folder on Windows 10 or 11, find the PC's address, connect from iPhone, and fix the usual sign-in and firewall errors.

• SMBDrop vs PhotoSync

  A fair comparison from the developer of one of them: where PhotoSync is clearly stronger, and where SMBDrop's narrower focus helps.

• The iPhone Files app's Connect to Server: what it can and can't do

  What Apple's free, built-in SMB client handles well, where it runs out for photo backup, and when a dedicated app is worth it.

• Live Photos and original iPhone files on a NAS: what actually gets copied

  Why "Save to Files" can give you a different file, why a Live Photo is two files, and how to check with ExifTool and checksums what actually landed.

Send your first batch tonight

Send original photos, videos and files from your iPhone straight to your own SMB share. One purchase, no account, no subscription.

£2.99 once · no subscription · iOS 17+