If you have a iPhone and a PC, there's now an easier, faster way to access your photos and videos from your Apple device. The Cupertino-based tech giant collaborated with Microsoft to integrate iCloud with the Windows 11 Photos app. Woo-hoo!

PCs aren't the only places you can now access your iPhone content; you can also use any Xbox device (e.g. Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S) to interact with your photos and videos. You may be wondering, "That's great news! But how do I get started?" Lucky for you, we've got a step-by-step guide on how to do it.

How to sync your iCloud photos and videos with the Windows 11 Photos app

There's no way around it, but if you want to access your iCloud content on your PC, you must upgrade to Windows 11 (here's how to install Windows 11). Once you've got Windows 11 ready to go, follow the instructions below to access your iPhone's photos and videos on your PC.

1. Click on Microsoft Store icon on Windows 11's desktop taskbar.

2. Type "iCloud" in the search bar and hit Enter. This should bring up the iCloud for Windows app.

3. Tap on "Get."

4. Once installed, click on "Library."

5. Scroll down to iCloud and click "Open."

6. You may get a message that says, "Do you want to allow this app to make changes to your device?" Click "Yes."

7. Input your Apple ID and password.

8. For 2FA, you'll be asked to input the verification code that was sent to your Apple device.

9. Once you've been verified, the iCloud app will appear. Click on "Apply."

10. Next, click on the Photos app on the taskbar and you should see that your iCloud photos and videos is totally integrated with your Windows content by scrolling through the Collection tab.

"How to buy more iPhone storage" is a popular search query on Google as iOS users scratch their heads over how to upgrade their iCloud. Perhaps they've been getting repetitive, irksome messages that their iCloud storage is full, or maybe they've realized that their current iCloud capacity simply won't cut it. No matter what camp you're in, you'll need a larger storage plan to meet your needs.

Apple offers three tiers for iCloud storage: 50GB, 200GB and 2TB. They are monthly subscriptions. For 50GB, you'll have to shell out $0.99 monthly. The 200GB and 2TB plans cost $2.99 and $10.99 per month, respectively.

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How to buy more iPhone storage

iPhone users get 5GB of free iCloud storage with their device, and if you love taking selfies and videos, it can run out quickly. If you don't want to delete any of your content to make more room on the cloud, you can upgrade your iCloud tier to a paid plan. 

1. Go to "Settings."

2. Tap on "[Your name] Apple ID, iCloud, Media & Purchases."

3. Tap on "iCloud."

4. Hit "Manage Storage."

5. Tap on "Change Storage Plan."

Here, you can choose the upgrade options that tickle your fancy: 50GB, 200GB or 2TB. The last two tiers can be shared with family.

6. Tap "Buy."

Follow the on-screen instructions, and voila, you now have an upgraded iCloud tier that gives you more storage for backing up your prized digital treasures in the cloud.

Apple has locked two of the best features of iOS 15 and macOS Monterey behind the iCloud+ paywall. Both Hide My Email, a tool that lets you share disposable email addresses, and Private Relay, which encrypts all of your internet traffic, require you to pay a dollar a month.

However, several third-party apps offer similar email and web encryption features without charging you a dime. Unlike Hide My Email and Private Relay, which only work with Apple Mail and Safari, these alternatives are compatible with all platforms. So if you don’t want to subscribe to Apple’s premium iCloud Plus plan, here’s how you can easily replicate its bundled privacy tools with free alternatives. 

What is Apple's Hide My Email?

Apple’s Hide My Email tool, as its name suggests, hides your email address. It creates randomly generated, unique email IDs that automatically forward incoming messages to your inbox. This allows you to use your personal email account without actually ever handing out the address. 

On top of that, you can now ask the Apple Mail app to scan and clear hidden trackers from your incoming messages. These trackers enable advertisers to keep tabs on your inbox activity and, based on which emails draw your attention, they can map your interests. 

Get Apple Hide My Email features for free with DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo’s Email Protection service offers all of Hide My Email’s features for free. It lets you relay all your emails through a disposable “@duck.com” address, and in the process, it gets rid of any detected trackers from the message’s body. 

Like Hide My Email, with DuckDuckGo’s apps and browser extensions, you can always keep your personal ID private by punching in randomly generated email addresses and configuring them to forward the communication to your inbox. But in case you don’t wish to bother with a new ID every time, DuckDuckGo allows you to create a permanent “@duck.com” you can hand out any time someone asks for your email address. 

When you no longer want to hear from a recipient, you also have the option to cancel the disposable email address you created for them. 

DuckDuckGo Email Protection is in beta at the time of writing, and you can sign up for it from its mobile apps. 

Prevent Gmail and Outlook from Loading Tracking Pixels

If you don’t want a third party to process all your emails, you can tweak your email service provider’s settings for better privacy. 

The most common way advertisers spy on you via email is with hidden tracking images. As soon as you load this picture, it signals to them that you’ve opened the email. To prevent this from happening, you can simply update your email settings to not render any graphical elements by default. 

On Gmail, the option is available at Settings > Images > Ask Before Displaying External Images. Outlook users need to head over to Options > Block External Images on mobile and Options > Trust Center > Automatic Download on desktop. On Apple Mail, visit Preferences > Viewing > Load remote content in messages. 

Now, whenever a new email has any pictures in its body, you will have to manually download the contents. But how do you tell which ones are safe to download? For that, you can install add-ons such as UglyMail, which automatically mark messages with pixel trackers. 

Switch to a Private Email Client

Alternatively, you can switch to a new email client that comes equipped with tracker blocking tools. Hey, a premium email provider not only blocks trackers in emails but also tells you who's spying on you. Similarly, ProtonMail is a free security-focused email platform that keeps out all trackers in emails by default. 

How Does iCloud Private Relay Work?

Apple’s Private Relay masks all the internet traffic leaving from your phone on Safari so that no one between you and the website can read it. It does so by separating your outgoing data into two different channels. The first anonymizes your device’s unique ID and maps it to a broad region instead of your precise location. The other hides the web address you’re visiting. Since this information is no longer sent together, intruders can’t track who you are and what sites you’re browsing. 

How to get Apple Private Relay’s features for free

One half of Private Relay functions pretty much as a VPN -- except with a VPN, you have access to a range of additional perks like picking the IP address’ location yourself to unlock region-locked streaming content. There are several free VPN services you can try to anonymize your internet traffic. 

For the second half, you’ll need a private DNS client. We recommend Cloudflare’s 1.1.1.1 DNS app. It’s free and prevents anyone from snooping on which websites you’re connecting to.

In addition to being much more flexible than Apple’s Private Relay tool, dedicated VPN and DNS apps also apply their encryption across all your internet activity, including the data your apps you’re transmitting and your browsing sessions on browsers apart from Safari.  

For many iPhone and iPad users, iCloud notifications are a constant reminder that we will never have enough storage to back up all our photos, documents, and messages to the cloud. Even if we take the time to manage our storage, the numerous photos and videos we take on a daily basis can quickly fill up the free 5G of iCloud storage Apple dishes out. Then we're back to our devices nagging us that “iCloud backup failed.”

For those not interested in iCloud storage and want to stop being reminded of it, here's a quick way to stop annoying iCloud notifications and alerts from popping up on your iPhone and iPad. 

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How to stop iCloud notifications on iPhone and iPad 

While Apple provides various methods to help you better manage your iCloud storage, such as changing the way different media is backed up or upgrading your subscription plan to up to 2TB, the simplest method is to turn off iCloud backup.

You can stop iCloud notifications on an iPhone and iPad with the same method below: 

• Open the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad 
• Tap "Apple ID" at the top of Settings
• Tap "iCloud"
• Scroll down and tap on "iCloud Backup" under the "Apps Using iCloud" section
• Tap to switch off iCloud backup. 

There you have it. Your iPhone or iPad will stop automatically backing up data such as photos and videos, account information, documents and apps. Since it no longer automatically backs up, your device won't nag you about failed iCloud back up attempts. 

How to manage iCloud Storage 

In the iCloud menu in the Settings app, you may notice there are many apps listed that could be storing data to your iCloud storage. Luckily, you can pick and choose which apps save data in the "Apps Using iCloud" section.

Photos and videos often take up the most space on iCloud, especially if there is only 5GB to deal with. For those in need of space, it's a good idea to turn off "iCloud Photos," otherwise your iPhone or iPad will automatically store all your photos and videos in iCloud.

Below "iCloud Photos," you'll find "My Photo Stream." This uploads your most recent photos (except Live Photos) so that you can view and import them to all of your Apple devices. This is a great option for those looking for storage, as photos are stored in the "My Photo Stream" for 30 days. However, unless saved, these can disappear.

For those who have upgraded their iPhone or iPad, be sure to check if your older iOS device is storing backups, too. 

• Open the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad
• Tap "Apple ID" at the top of Settings
• Tap "iCloud"
• Tap "Manage Storage"
• Tap "Backups" 
• Choose the device that no longer needs to save backups, and tap "Delete Backups."

Managing your iCloud Storage can easily prevent any annoying iCloud alerts from popping up, but if you can't be bothered with managing it all, switching off iCloud Backup will do the trick. For a further look into backing up data in iCloud, check out our guide on how to backup your iPhone. 

"How to backup your iPhone" is a popular search query on Google, and with good reason. You never know when something could go awry. Your iPhone could suffer data loss, and because you didn't back up your device, you have no way of recovering all the information that disappeared.

Fortunately, there is a way that you can store your data elsewhere. This way, even if your device blows up, sinks into the ocean or self-destructs, you'll still be able to retrieve your data no matter what happens to your iPhone.

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How to backup your iPhone

One of the easiest ways you can backup your iPhone data is to store it in your iCloud, which securely saves your data and important information on Apple's remote servers. It's good practice to backup your iPhone data so you're covered in the event of a data-loss event.

Apple will often ask users to backup their data to prepare their devices for iPhone repairs. The technician may need to wipe some or all of your data to fix your device, so it's best that you back up your data just in case. That being said, here's how to back up your iPhone.

1. Open the Settings app.

2. Tap on "[Your name] Apple ID, iCloud, Media & Purchases."

3. Tap on "iCloud."

4. Scroll down to the end of "Apps Using iCloud."

5. Tap on "iCloud Backup."

6. Click on "Back Up Now."

Your iPhone will begin backing up your data to the cloud and you should be good to go.

How to access iCloud

Now that you know how to backup your iPhone data, you'll want to figure out how to recover your data when you need it. Here's a step-by-step tutorial on how to access iCloud.

1. Type in "iCloud.com" into the address bar of your browser.

2. Type in your Apple ID into the empty space. Click on the arrow button.

3. Type in your password and click on the arrow button once more.

4. Here, you'll find all of your backed-up data, from your contact list to your photos. You can even retrieve all the notes you've typed with the handy-dandy Notes app.

iCloud Photos is second to none when it comes to storing photos or videos when using an iPhone or Mac. However, if you're looking for some extra space, you'll want to make use of that Google Photos account (even though it won't have unlimited free storage anymore).

Apple has released a new feature that allows iCloud users to transfer photos to Google Photos, along with other future services. Although, it will take some time before the process is transferred due to data protection. 

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According to Apple, the transfer process takes between three and seven days, as the service will need to verify the request to make sure both accounts are under the same user.

Along with this, the new feature will only be available in select regions, including Australia, Canada, the European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. This is expected to expand to other countries in the future. 

How to transfer iCloud Photos to Google Photos

When transferring iCloud Photos to Google Photos, the new service will transfer a copy of the select photos rather than a full transfer of the original. So, users won't need to worry if they suddenly lose or delete photos.

In order to make the transfer, the user's Apple ID will need to use two-factor authentication, and they will need to have a Google account to use Google Photos, along with enough storage to make the transfer, naturally.

In order to request a transfer, sign in with the Apple ID you want to transfer iCloud Photos from by heading to privacy.apple.com.  From there, you'll find a “Transfer a copy of your data” section. Click on the “Request to transfer a copy of your data” option.

From there, follow the onscreen instructions to complete the request. Users will then be asked to sign in to the Google account they want photos transferred to, and allow Apple to transfer photos and videos into the account. You will then be able to click the “Confirm Transfer” button.

Once the transfer request is complete, it will take a few days before the photos or videos are transferred. Once done, the copied iCloud Photos will have a file name starting off with "Copy of." Annoying if you're one to organize photos alphabetically.

Certain iCloud-specific features, including Smart Albums or Live Photos may not be available, as it may depend on the format of the photo. You can find out more over on the Support page.

If Google Photos wasn't taking away its unlimited storage option, this would be an even better feature for Apple users. Instead, check out the best way to free up Google Photo storage space. 

There's an estimated 1 exabyte worth of data being stored in the cloud. That's more than 1 million gigabytes. So it's little wonder all the major names are constantly evolving their services, hoping to keep users and attract new ones. With the announcement of new pricing for its iCloud service, Apple hopes to keep the iOS faithful backed up everywhere, and possibly lure more folks to its side. But Apple still must compete with Dropbox, Google and Microsoft, just to name a few. 

So which cloud service is the best deal? Here's our pricing breakdown.

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Pricing

To help you pick the right cloud service, let's start by examining the basics of what each service offers. What exactly do you get for your money? Note: Apple's new iCloud pricing won't take affect until this fall. 

If free is the right price for your online storage needs, you're best bets are Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive. Dropbox could be great -- 16GB beats everyone -- but to get all that space you'll need to refer 28 other people to try Dropbox. 

Apple offers a 20GB option of cloud storage. So if that is your sweet spot it will cost you $0.99 per month. Microsoft offers this amount free with an Office 365 subscription, but that costs at least $6.99 per month for one person. With the next tier up -- 50GB -- Apple gets some competition from Microsoft. But Microsoft's service is so much cheaper at $25. 

Google, Microsoft and Dropbox all compete in the 100GB space, with the best deal going to Google Drive at $1.99 per month. But for 200GB you'll get the best price per gigabyte from Apple's new iCloud pricing structure, which will run you $3.99 per month. Google and Dropbox don't offer options in this size range. 

Once you get to the 1TB range, you get much more business-focused plans. Google offers 1TB for 9.99 a month. Onedrive (coming soon) and Dropbox instead charge based on the number of total users at $2.50 and $15 per user respectively. Apple has not yet announced a price for its 1TB option. 

Features

iCloud 

The current services offered by iCloud include photo and content sharing, Find my iPhone, iWork integration, iCloud Keychain and backups for mail, calendar, contacts and storage. More features are coming in the fall with iCloud Drive and iOS 8, promising drag and drop syncing, simultaneous multi-app editing and family sharing. This will also coincide with better prices and options for storage and more robust sharing features, especially for iOS users. However, there is no support for Android, at least not yet. 

Google Drive 

Google's cloud services feature a combination of cheap storage and office production software for creating documents, presentations, spreadsheets, forms, drawings and folders with simple sharing. Their free Google Drive app adds drag and drop syncing and the flexibility to continue working even when offline. Drive is also integrated with Gmail for seamless saving of files and attachments. One unique feature for Drive will help you go paperless by allowing your Android device to scan documents and automatically convert them to PDFs. Photo and media sharing is possible, but better when paired with partner apps like Picasa and Google+.

OneDrive 

Microsoft's cloud solution is most similar to Google Drive, in that it also offers storage combined with integration of their Office suite for online and offline editing, co-authoring and syncing. Microsoft does make considerations for photo sharing with online and email slideshow but pale in comparison to more mainstream photo apps. Since OneDrive is built into Windows 8, users also have exclusive access to features like smart syncing, camera roll and PC backup and Windows Store integration. The 20GB of storage on OneDrive comes free with a subscription to Office 365 (starting at $6.99 per month for 1 person). 

Dropbox 

Dropbox does one thing and does it well. It provides virtual  synced storage that will hold anything you put in your folders, for easy sharing and retrieval on any machine. A bonus feature is Dropbox Camera Upload which automatically syncs photos from your camera, phone or tablet through the Dropbox app, PC or Mac. You can upgrade to pro for more storage and business for better support, multi-user management and enhanced security. Like Google and Microsoft, the Dropbox service supports every major platform, including Windows, OS X, iOS, Android and Windows Phone.

Bottom Line

Google Drive is currently the most popular service (who doesn't have a Gmail account?) and makes creating and sharing across every platform a breeze. Microsoft is attempting to get more traction for OneDrive. With the release and integration with Office 365 you can bet the company will be shifting more focus to their cloud services. Google Drive and OneDrive's integration with productivity software separates it from Dropbox.

Dropbox is the simplest cloud service to use and platform agnostic, as its sole purpose is easy-to-use storage and sharing. Apple is taking a somewhat different path with iCloud, combining behind-the-scenes media and document syncing across multiple devices with an upcoming iCloud Drive option that will give users the drag-and-drop and organization features competitors already offer.

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Tired of having pockets of music stored all over the place? With iTunes Match you can unify your digital music library. This Apple service connects your iTunes library with your non-iTunes music and sends it all to Apple's cloud storage, called iCloud. For an annual fee of $24.99, users can store up to 25,000 non-iTunes songs in iCloud and access their entire iTunes library with any iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Apple TV, or any other device that can install iTunes. Users also unlock an ad-free version of iTunes Radio so you can listen to even more music without having to hear those pesky ads. Here’s how to set up iTunes Match.

1. Launch iTunes on your computer.

2. Click ‘Turn on iTunes Match’ under the Store drop down menu.

MORE: 12 Best Music Apps

3. Click ‘Subscribe for $24.99 per Year’ at the bottom of the iTunes Match page in iTunes.

4. Enter iTunes Account Credentials, then click ‘Subscribe’. iTunes will then scan your iTunes library to determine which songs aren’t available in iTunes so it can begin the upload process. Any music that’s not available in iTunes will upload to iCloud so you can access it on your iOS device.

5. On your iOS device, tap Settings.

6. Tap ‘Music’ to enter the sub-menu.

7. Tap the ‘iTunes Match’ slider, then click Enable on your iOS device.

8. Launch the Music App. Your music from your iTunes Match library will populate the Music app on your iOS device. You can tap a song, album or playlist to stream your music, or click the cloud icon to download music to your device.

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Imagine you're playing with your young daughter when suddenly your iPhone goes blank. You check your iPad, but it's been wiped clean too.

You run to your laptop, and catch it erasing all its own data. You get online, but both of your email addresses have been hijacked, your online storage has been emptied and someone else is using your Twitter account.

This nightmare scenario happened in real life Friday afternoon (Aug. 3) for Mat Honan, a technology journalist based in San Francisco.

Someone took over Honan's Apple account, which let him remotely wipe Honan's iPhone, iPad and MacBook, then leverage that power to take over Honan's Google and Twitter accounts as well, plus the Twitter account of Gizmodo, the tech blog Honan sometimes writes for.

Yet Honan's enemy wasn't an elite hacker who used advanced techniques to crack Honan's password. Instead, the attacker simply placed a call to Apple tech support and convinced Apple to give him control of Honan's Apple account.

Tale of the tape

"At 4:50 PM, someone got into my iCloud account, reset the password and sent the confirmation message about the reset to the trash," Honan wrote on his Tumblr account, which was spared. "At 4:52 PM, they sent a Gmail password recovery email to the .mac account. Two minutes later, an email arrived notifying me that my Google Account password had changed.

"At 5:00 PM, they remote wiped my iPhone. At 5:01 PM, they remote wiped my iPad. At 5:05, they remote wiped my MacBook Air. A few minutes after that, they took over my Twitter." (Honan posted a screen grab of the notifications his Gmail account received.)

The attacker, identifying himself as part of a hacker group calling itself "Clan Vv3," used Honan's Twitter account, "@mat," to post, "@gizmodo Tell this dumbass employee mat he's an idiot for using insecure email services, having a 3-letter Twitter, and having access to [Gizmodo]."

 (The Clan Vv3 posts are still up on Honan's Twitter feed.)

Then he or she took over Gizmodo's Twitter account and posted offensive messages for about 15 minutes.

Clan Vv3 has been hijacking the Twitter accounts of minor celebrities for several months, for example one belonging to comedian and TV star Whitney Cummings in June.

After a distressing couple of days, Honan has now regained control of his Twitter and Google accounts and has an appointment with an Apple Store Genius Bar today (Aug. 6) to try to recover the data on his Macbook.

Technology is smart, but people are dumb

The entire episode should serve as a warning to others about two issues.

First, Honan was overly reliant on one company's services — in this case, Apple's. Honan backed up his MacBook, his iPhone and his iPad, but he did so only to iCloud, Apple's own cloud-storage service. All of that was destroyed with one password.

Cloud storage is great, as long as you have reliable Internet access, but it's best to have backups you physically control — for example, on an external hard drive.

Honan's ".mac" email address was the emergency confirmation address that Honan had instructed Google to notify if anything went wrong with his Google account.

So when the attacker, posing as Honan, pretended he'd forgotten his Google password, the confirmation email went to the .mac address, which the attacker already controlled.

Once the attacker had control of the Google account and the Gmail service, he used that to take over Honan's Twitter feed.

Honan could have used Google's two-factor authentication service, which upon a password-reset attempt sends a text message to a designated cellphone as well as an email to a non-Google email address for confirmation. But that wouldn't have prevented the wholesale wiping of all his Apple products.

Second, no matter how good security technology gets, it will never be able to stop "social engineering" attacks, or what your grandparents would have called a good con job.

In the early '90s, famed hacker Kevin Mitnick found that the best way to get into any secure system was to simply telephone the system's administrators and convince them you were an employee who'd forgotten his password.

Twenty years and thousands of successful hacks later, the same method still works on the world's most valuable and most high-profile technology company.

It's not clear exactly what the attacker said to the tech-support person who answered the phone, but as some experts have pointed out, Apple should not give frontline tech-support staffers the ability to reset user passwords.

Most online-account hijacks are the result of weak passwords — the passwords are too short, too obvious, used in too many places or limited to lower-case letters. 

Honan's password was rather short, but it was unique and used mixed characters. "My password was a 7-digit alphanumeric that I didn’t use elsewhere," he wrote on his Tumblr page.

But it didn't matter. As Sascha Segan of PC Magazine tweeted, "The strongest password in the world wouldn't have saved @mat."

Apple took its first major step towards unleashing its iCloud service upon the masses today by opening the beta version of the anticipated cloud service to developers through its iCloud.com site. We took a look at the current setup and were impressed with the ease of use and intuitive interface. The service allows users to sync their iOS 5, OS X, and Windows devices via Wi-Fi, meaning you can download a song or app from iTunes onto your iPad and have it automatically pushed to your iPhone, iPod Touch, Mac, or Windows PC. 

The same goes for photos users take on their iPhones or iPads. Once a picture is taken, and the user has an active internet connection, the image is saved to iCloud and automatically pushed to each of the user's other iOS and Mac devices. The last 1,000 photos you take will be saved on your devices, and iCloud will store all of your new photos for up to 30 days. Mac users will be able to store as many photos as their hard drives can hold. Mail and Calendar can also be synced across your devices. IWork files from Pages, Numbers, and Keynote can also automatically be synched with each of your iCloud-enabled devices. If, for instance, you make changes to an iWork document on your iPad, those changes will  automatically be reflected on your other Mac and iOS devices.

While perusing iCloud's features we were glad to see that Apple's minimalist design translated well into the new service. The home screen currently only provides you with access to Mail, Calendar, Contacts, iWork, and the Find My Phone feature. Anyone who has used an Apple product in recent years will have no problem navigating the interface, and neophytes should become accustomed to the format quickly. We especially like that Apple included a small iCloud icon in the top left corner of each app the returns you to the iCloud homepage. If you are looking to access the iCloud Beta you'll need an Apple developer account, otherwise consider yourself out of luck.