How to Get Your Photos From Verizon’s Holey Cloud Service
Storing all of your photos in the cloud can be a great solution until that happens. Sometimes the storage services you use can hike up their prices, or some of your photos may just inexplicably disappear. Worse, your private photos may end up on a stranger’s smartphone.
Sounds crazy, but this is exactly what happened to one Oregon resident. Photos of him and his fiance (including some nude photos) that were stored on the Verizon cloud service somehow ended up on another Verizon phone. Fortunately, in this case, the owner of the phone knew the couple and alerted them to this, leading to a $ 4 million lawsuit against the carrier.
If you’re using Verizon Cloud to store your photos and you’re worried the same thing might happen to you, here’s what you need to know and what you can do about it.
What is the problem?
It is unclear what exactly caused this particular incident. There is a popular theory in a forum discussing the story that Verizon associates its cloud service accounts with the international mobile equipment identification number of each smartphone. The problem is that the IMEI of the device does not change when the SIM card is replaced, so the refurbished phone could potentially have access to another cloud storage.
Regardless of the specific reason, a little research quickly reveals that Verizon Cloud is not exactly popular with its users. Just type the words “Verizon Cloud Photos” into Google and the AutoComplete suggestions speak for themselves.
How to get your photos from Verizon Cloud
It is possible to transfer your photos and videos from Verizon Cloud to another photo storage service, but the company doesn’t make it easy. You will need to sign in to your cloud storage account, select your media files, download them to your device, and then upload them to another service.
The exact process varies slightly depending on your device. The easiest way to do this is on a PC , where Verizon actually lets you select all of your photos at once and then upload them. If you only have a Mac, you will need to click each individual file you want to download, following Verizon’s instructions . The process on a smartphone is similar, but Verizon’s mobile interface somehow complicates it a little.
Once you’ve downloaded all of your photos and videos, you can easily delete them from the Verizon Cloud. According to the company’s instructions , all you have to do is log into the Verizon website, select the files you are disposing of (or just select all of them), and then send them to the trash. After that, the chances of your private photos accidentally appearing on a stranger’s phone should be much lower.
Where is the best place to store photos
If you’ve just ditched Verizon Cloud, you’ll probably need a new cloud service to store all of your images. Personally, I’m a big fan of Google Photos , which works seamlessly and offers 15GB of storage for free. If you’re not a Google fan, Amazon offers 5GB of free storage for Prime subscribers, and Microsoft also offers 5GB of storage for free with paid tiers above.
While you wait for Verizon to fix its privacy concerns, there are plenty of options to choose from, although once you get a feel for the convenience of Google Photos, you might never want to go back again.