One of the most common questions I hear from family historians is: “Where should I upload my photos?” It’s an understandable question… and also the wrong one. If you are responsible for preserving family photos for future generations, cloud storage is not just a convenience decision. It’s a stewardship decision. The wrong platform can quietly undermine your work by stripping metadata, locking you into proprietary systems, or leaving no clear way for your family to access the archive after you’re gone. This is why, inside DPO PRO, we spend time reframing this question entirely. The real question is not in what cloud your photos should live; it’s what role your cloud storage plays. Keep reading, friend, and let’s explore this more together…
Is Your Cloud Storage Your Photo System?
Hmmm… Good question, right? This is one of the most important concepts to understand in photo organizing. In some rare cases, the answer is yes, but in most cases, it’s a loud and resounding no.
Here’s why:
Your overall photo ecosystem is the combination of:
your original files
a meaningful structure
the stories (i.e. embedded metadata, such as dates, names, locations, captions, and keywords)
redundancy (more than one copy)
- creative outputs (i.e. your fun projects), and
intentional legacy planning
Your cloud storage is most often just one layer in that system, nothing more.
When cloud storage is treated as “the system,” people often:
assume permanence when none exists
lose control over metadata
struggle to export originals cleanly, if ever attempted
scroll and scroll without finding that “one photo”
- discover there is no inheritance plan
In other words, a good cloud platform should support your system, not replace it.
The Criteria I Use to Evaluate Cloud Storage for Family Photos
When I evaluate cloud storage for family historians, I use my proprietary 6P formula. This formula is a bit too extensive to re-word in one blog post, but in a nutshell, it’s comprised of six very different criteria. To extrapolate some of the basics for you, here are some of those ingredients in layman’s terms:
Permanence
Is the platform designed for long-term preservation, or for short-term engagement and subscriptions?
Privacy & Ownership
Are you the customer, or is your data the product?
Metadata Preservation
Are EXIF/IPTC/XMP metadata embedded or preserved intact, and exportable without advanced gymnastics?
Price at Scale
Does the pricing still make sense when your archive grows into the terabytes?
Next-of-Kin / Legacy Access
Is there a clear, intentional way for someone else to steward the archive after your death?
With that framework in mind, let’s look at the platforms that actually hold up. If a platform fails any one of these, it cannot be trusted as a true preservation layer.
The Top 3 Cloud Storage Options That Meet These Criteria
Few platforms fulfill the rigorous criteria we need for various reasons, but there are standouts. Here are the top three places to keep a permanent photo archive in the cloud, as of January 2026:
#1 — Permanent.org
Best overall for family historians
Permanent.org exists for one reason: long-term digital preservation. Unlike most cloud services, Permanent is not trying to keep you engaged or monetize your behavior. It uses a one-time storage fee model and explicitly states that original files are preserved without modification.
Why it aligns with a preservation workflow:
Files are not recompressed or altered
Metadata is treated as essential, not optional
You can designate a Legacy Contact and Archive Steward
The platform is built around the concept of cultural memory
This makes Permanent an excellent preservation home, i.e. a cloud storage place where your fully organized, metadata-rich archive can rest easy. It’s not designed for casual browsing or daily syncing, and that’s actually strength, in my opinion.
#2 — FOREVER.com
Best legacy-oriented consumer platform
Forever is built specifically for memory keeping and inheritance, which makes it very different from mainstream photo platforms. I have been a Forever Ambassador since 2014, but I am not biased. This platform (just like the other ones) has its pros and cons.
What it does well:
Clear legacy and preservation settings
Storage purchased is positioned as permanent ownership
Strong focus on stories, captions, and context
Designed to be passed down, not abandoned
- Friendly user interface
Forever works best as a legacy destination, i.e. a place where curated collections live for family access, rather than as a working photo management system. For many family historians, this balance of accessibility and long-term intent feels right.
#3 — PhotoShelter (with some planning)
Best metadata-safe cloud storage layer
PhotoShelter was created for professional photographers, which means it does something many consumer platforms do not: it respects metadata.
Strengths:
Excellent preservation of embedded IPTC/XMP metadata
No silent compression or alteration of originals
Clean exports and strong folder control
Clear ownership model (i.e. you are not the product)
However, PhotoShelter is not a legacy platform. It does not include any next-of-kin workflows or inheritance features, so if you decide to use it, I recommend you pair it with:
written access instructions
documented credentials or estate planning
a clear explanation of your system
When used correctly, PhotoShelter can be a very solid storage layer inside a larger preservation plan.
Why Some Popular Platforms Don’t Belong in a Preservation Workflow
This is where clarity matters.
Many photo enthusiasts enjoy more mainstream cloud solutions, like Google Photos, Dropbox, and iCloud, and often wonder why I don’t recommend them for archiving. Let me be clear: it’s not that they’re bad services; they’re just not focused on long-term preservation. When used appropriately, they can be excellent additions to your photo system, but they’re not where collections permanently live.
Let’s take a look at a few examples together:
Why Google Photos Is Not Appropriate for Family Historians
Google Photos is optimized for convenience and engagement instead of stewardship. Do they have some excellent organization offerings? Sure, but it was not built for archiving. It is a viewing and sharing tool, and you are the product.
Problems include:
Metadata fragmentation and inconsistent embedding
Complex exports that separate metadata into sidecar files
Data mining and AI training incentives
No true inheritance or stewardship model
Why iCloud Photos Falls a Bit Short
Apple deserves credit for introducing a feature called Legacy Contact, which is better than nothing. That means that someone else (next-of-kin, for example) could retrieve your photos in the event it became necessary.
However:
Metadata handling is opaque
- No taxonomy capabilities
iCloud is designed for syncing, not archiving
Files are embedded in a proprietary ecosystem, which is not a solid preservation model
Personally, I love Apple Photos and iCloud, and I teach them often. The system is convenient and user-friendly, and I promote it a lot as a working library or sync layer. That being said, I do not believe that it belongs in the top tier for long-term family history or photo preservation.
Why Ancestry.com Is Not a Photo Archive
This is a common and dangerous misconception as well. Lots of folks love Ancestry, including me. You can upload photos, find fun documents, and learn about family history in a very rich environment. What needs to be said though, is that – at large – Ancestry is a research database, governed by user-generated content and safe-harbor rules.
Uploaded photos:
are not treated as archival originals
- are subject to licensing and derivative use
- do not guarantee metadata preservation or clean export
- anyone can modify content and metadata
In short, Ancestry is excellent for making genealogical connections, but it is not a preservation solution.
The Architecture I Teach Inside DPO PRO
Inside my course DPO PRO: The Ultimate Photo Organizing Masterclass, we don’t start with tools. We start with systems architecture… because that’s actually what you need. You cannot maintain a system that does not exist, and tools should be replaceable at any time (hint: that’s exactly what makes them tools).
A preservation-first setup looks like this:
1. Solid Ecosystem (a.k.a. DPO Flow)
A clear understanding of how your ecosystem functions – at scale.
2. Main Photo Library
Fully organized with embedded metadata. If it’s local, it needs to be on a stable computer or drive. If cloud-based, it needs to meet my 6P formula for functionality.
3. Secondary Local Backup
A complete copy of your main photo library (as a fail safe)
4. Tertiary Cloud Copy, or Preservation Home
Safe backup storage for redundancy. This could possibly be your permanent cloud archive.
5. Written Legacy Plan
Instructions, access, and designated stewards for safe-keeping over generations.
These are all the pieces of a solid system that will keep your memories safe. As you can see, there is more than one slice that makes up this pie. When cloud storage is placed in its proper role, decisions become clearer and mistakes become far less likely.
Please Remember Stewardship
Your memories are important. The goal is not to just “put your photos somewhere.” The goal is to make sure that years from now, so that when someone else opens them, they still make sense. That requires more than storage. It requires intention, structure, and stewardship.
If you’d like to learn more about how to get your photos organized, I invite you to join us inside of DPO PRO: The Ultimate Photo Organizing Masterclass. You can find more information here, and start with our free DPO Flow webinar that outlines more about how to design your digital photo ecosystem well. Learn and enjoy!
Photo by Monisha Selvakumar on Unsplash
No Comments