There comes a time in every tech user's life when they must decide whether to pay for cloud storage.

Perhaps you've burned through Apple's measly 5 GB of free iCloud storage and are tired of being nagged with "Not Enough Storage" alerts. Maybe you've been using Gmail for long enough that 15 GB of free storage is no longer sufficient, or you've run into Dropbox's limit of three synced devices. These services are designed to gradually nudge you toward their limits, at which point paying just seems easier than figuring out alternative solutions.

I'm not going to dissuade you from paying for iCloud, Google Drive, or any other cloud storage service if you have good reasons for doing so. But with a little bit of maneuvering, you can still enjoy the benefits of cloud storage—convenient access anywhere, less risk of losing precious data—without any added costs. Here are some options to keep in mind as storage space fills up.

Use Google Photos instead of iCloud

My stock answer for when friends and family members ask if they should be paying for iCloud storage: Are you using Google Photos? It offers unlimited, automatic photo and video backups from your phone, and while Google does compress the images for the free version of its service, the difference in quality is barely noticeable. It also offers top-notch facial recognition and the ability to auto-share pictures of certain people with others. If you need more info on how Google Photos works, I wrote a primer about a year ago.

Once you've set up Google Photos on an iPhone, head to Settings > Your Name > iCloud, and uncheck Photos under "Apps Using iCloud." Then, at the top of the same menu, head to "Manage Storage," tap on Photos, and select "Disable & Delete." You should suddenly have a lot more free iCloud space for backing up other content from your apps.

Use My Photo Stream for full-res iPhone backups

As an alternative to iCloud, Apple's My Photo Stream feature stores your 1,000 most recent photos online for up to 30 days, but you can also have them download automatically onto a Mac or Windows PC to keep indefinitely. If you have enough storage on your computer, it makes great combo with Google Photos, since you'll have one copy of your all your pictures online, and another full-resolution copy on your computer. (The only caveat: My Photo Stream doesn't back up videos, just photos.) You can enable My Photo Stream on an iPhone through Settings > Photos.

To make sure My Photo Stream downloads your images on a Mac, head to the Photos app, and under Preferences > General, check off "Copy items to the Photos library."

On Windows, you must download the legacy version of iCloud instead of the Windows 10 version. (Here's the direct link.) Then, during setup, hit the Options button next to Photos and check off "My Photo Stream." The photos will appear in File Explorer under "iCloud Photos > Downloads."

Use Amazon Prime's free photo storage

Amazon doesn't publicize this enough, but Prime members get unlimited photo backups at full resolution, along with 5 GB of storage for videos. Just download the Amazon Photos app for iOS or Android, and after setting it up, your photos will automatically get backed up online. (There's also a desktop app for syncing photos from a Mac or PC.)

Amazon's photo browsing experience has also improved in recent years, with face recognition, object search, and group photo sharing. And if you have an Amazon Echo Show smart display or Fire TV streaming device, you can search for photos there or use your photos as wallpapers.

Work around Dropbox's sync limits

Although Dropbox is increasingly focused on business customers, it's still second-to-none at syncing documents across devices. Unfortunately, free users have only been able to sync up to three devices at once as of March 2019.

The good news is that this limit doesn't apply to third-party apps that integrate with Dropbox, so you can use them to sync instead of the official Dropbox app if you run out of devices. On Android, Autosync for Dropbox lets you sync folders for offline access. On iOS, Documents by Readdle lets you connect a Dropbox account for accessing files and syncing them for offline use.

Execute "Operation Free Gmail"

Although it's not an easy process, you can free up Gmail storage space by creating a secondary Gmail account, forwarding older emails to it, then deleting those emails from your main Gmail account. I performed this operation earlier this year and reclaimed about 10 GB of storage space, allowing me to get off the Google Drive subscription treadmill. You can read about how set this up in my newsletter from February.

Consider compartmentalizing

Because every major cloud storage service has a free tier, the easiest way to maximize your storage is to use several of them in tandem. You might, for instance, use Dropbox to store your documents, iCloud or Google Drive to save data from iOS or Android apps, and OneDrive to store videos. By setting out different use cases for each service, you'll have an easier time remembering where your data is stored.

Bundle Office with OneDrive

OneDrive continues to be the best deal in cloud storage, because it's bundled with Microsoft Office subscriptions at no extra charge. A subscription to Microsoft 365 Personal (formerly Office 365) includes 1 TB of cloud storage for $70 per year, and you can usually get one-year subscription codes on eBay for even less. (Here's one for $40.) I've been storing my pictures, documents, and music in OneDrive for years—while also using Google Photos as a secondary photo backup source—and have no major complaints. If you have to use Office anyway, you might not need cloud storage from anywhere else.

Beware of giveaways

Last week, Google started offering 100 GB of free Dropbox space for one year to Chromebook owners, and it often provides a year or two of free Google Drive storage as well. After the promo period is up, however, you'll have no choice but to pay or go through the hassle of removing your files. I never accept these deals, because they're really just sales tactics in disguise.

Need more advice on cloud storage? Send me an email or hop into the Advisorator chat room on Slack to discuss further.
 

5G's forced phone upgrades: As wireless carriers try to build up their 5G networks, they're now starting to wind down some legacy networking standards, potentially stranding some users of older phones. Documents provided to Android Police show that T-Mobile will end support for 3G calling in January 2021, while AT&T has confirmed that it will turn off 3G calling in February 2022. AT&T has even started sending out some alarming emails to customers warning that their phones could stop working, even though the switch is a year and a half away.

That said, chances are you won't be affected by this. All Apple phones from the iPhone 6 onward support HD Voice and Voice over LTE, and if you bought a 4G LTE phone specifically for AT&T or T-Mobile, it'll mostly likely work as well. Still, there are some carrier-unlocked phones that may not work, especially if AT&T hasn't decided to support them. Android Police has helpful T-Mobile and AT&T guides for figuring out if your Android phone will be left behind.

Smart gadgets behaving badly: An apparent Wi-Fi bug in some Nest thermostats is permanently disabling their remote control features, effectively turning them into regular old thermostats. Although Google says the problem only affects a "very small number of users," it's bad enough that the company is offering to replace units that can't be fixed through basic troubleshooting.

Garmin, meanwhile, is having even bigger problems with its smartwatches and fitness trackers. On Thursday, attackers broke into Garmin's systems and held them for ransom, rendering its website, data syncing, and other online features inoperable through the weekend. Garmin spent most of this time referring to the issue as an "outage," only acknowledging on Monday that it had been attacked.

I'm lumping these seemingly-unrelated stories into one news item because they both lead to the same conclusion: No smart gadgets are foolproof, so the response from the companies behind them matters almost as much as the initial failure. If I was an affected Nest customer, I'd be peeved at the inconvenience of having to replace my thermostat, but I'd be more concerned about being left in the dark as a Garmin customer. As ZDNet's Larry Dignan opines, the non-response was a textbook example of how not to handle a cybersecurity attack.

Alexa's new app: After announcing hands-free voice commands in its iOS and Android apps a few weeks ago, Amazon is releasing a bigger mobile app redesign. The home screen now suggests some actions based on your usage, such as links to music you like or quick controls for smart home devices, but also just seems a lot snappier than it used to be.

Amazon says it's rolling out the update from now through late August, so you may not see it yet. One way to tell: The new app has the Alexa button at the top of the screen.
 

While it's not new, I've been enjoying a free iPhone app called Slow Fast Slow, which provides a simple way to speed up or slow down your videos. Unlike Apple's built-in slo-mo editor, Slow Fast Slow works with any video you've taken—including ones shot at regular speed—and you can have multiple speed changes in a single video.

Just drag the dots along the video timeline to control where slo- or fast-mo should start and end, and move them up or down to adjust the speed. You can also press and hold anywhere on the timeline to add more speed changes, and you can either mute the audio or preserve the original pitch.

My only nitpick with Slow Fast Slow is that it's hard to dial in precise start and endpoints for speed changes, but the flip side is that it's easy to use, and it has no banner ads, in-app purchases, or subscription schemes. Studio Neat built the app as a way to market their hardware products, so its only sales tactic is a small link to the developer's website. (They also make a pretty slick app for saving your own cocktail recipes.) Refreshing.
 

Another tab manager: Although I've written before about various ways to save browser tabs for later, a new Chrome extension called NimoTab puts an interesting spin on the formula. For one thing, it's dead-simple to use, with just one click on the extension button to close and save all your tabs into NimoTab's menu screen. From there, you can click "Recover Tabs" to open all the pages back up again and delete them from the menu.

NimoTab also has some other neat tricks: It will automatically consolidate multiple instances of the same webpage into one tab, and if you head to Preferences in NimoTab's menu, you can exclude certain domain names and keywords from being saved. That allows you to prevent sites like Gmail from being re-opened alongside all your other tabs. It's a clever way to save tabs for later while also clearing out some of the unnecessary clutter.

Spotify's video podcasts: In its latest move to conquer the podcast business, Spotify is letting some creators add video to their podcasts. You can check it out with The Fantasy Footballers, The Morning Toast, and a handful of others listed in Spotify's announcement. (The feature seems to work on Spotify's mobile and desktop apps, but not its website.)

It'd be nice to see some more experimentation with the video—you're still just looking at a bunch of talking heads—but at least you can see reactions and to put faces to names. On the downside, there's no way to disable video playback if you want to save bandwidth without just exiting the Spotify app and letting audio play the background. Hopefully Spotify will add those controls as it expands video to more creators.
 

• By me: Create a "Screened Out" folder to hide annoying emails.
• The Markup investigates how fake Amazon product reviews get made (and how to spot them).
• Here's more evidence that the iPhone 12 will come in a smaller size.
• How-To Geek has a helpful summary of all the location tracking that can happen on an iPhone.
• OnePlus exposed some customers' contact info by forgetting to use BCC.

If you haven't subscribed to Amazon Music Unlimited before, you can get an Amazon Echo Dot speaker and two months of the streaming music service for $17. The speaker alone usually costs $50, and even its lowest sale price hasn't dropped below $22. Amazon's also offering the Echo Dot with a built-in digital clock for $26 with two months of Amazon Music Unlimited.

Those who have signed up for Amazon Music Unlimited may still be eligible for both deals, albeit at a $4 markup. (This didn't work for me, probably because I've partaken in previous deals like this.) In any case, make sure to cancel Amazon Music Unlimited after the speaker ships if you don't want to get billed after two months.

Other deals this morning:

• RAVPower's 61W fast wall charger with both USB-C and USB-A ports is on sale for $19 when you clip the product page coupon.
• Choetech's USB-C hub (with USB-A, SD card, and HDMI ports) is on sale for $9 with the coupon code R59FPS36.
• Prepaid wireless cards for Cricket, AT&T, Tracfone, Net10, Total Wireless, and Simple Mobile are all on sale through Kroger, with delivery via email. Slickdeals has the full list.

Hey folks, I'm looking to spruce up the Advisorator subscription page with some new testimonials from readers. If you're a fan of this newsletter and don't mind sending me a line or two about why, I'd really appreciate it! (And if, by chance, you're less enthused about this newsletter, I'd love to hear from you as well.)

As always, send me your questions, comments, and feedback by replying to this email, or join the Advisorator chat room on Slack for some friendly discussion.