# I cant access my icloud



## DaisyNinja (May 25, 2020)

I have a phone set up with a different apple id to the one I usually use. It was supposed to be a temporary phone but now I have all my photos on it and cant back them up to icloud. I recently bought a new laptop and tried to back up all my photos onto that usinf itunes but there is only 120 GB and I need 125 GB free to back up my phone so it kept saying tehre wasnt enough storage space on my laptop. I cant remember my icloud id for this phone and when I try to change it, it wont let me without entering it in first. I really want to back up my photos on my phone but am unsure how I can do this. The icloud is at capacity and I cant access it to upgrade. I have spare space on my icloud storage plan that I normally use but Im worried if I sign out of my apple id I will lose all the photos that arent backed up. what do you recommend? Is there a way to add more storage to my laptop or do I need to buy a new one? How do I access my icloud without knowing the password to back all my photos up on my phone?


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## texasbullet (Jun 11, 2014)

You can buy an external HDD at least 500 GB to store your pictures and other documents in there and still have plenty of space available just in case.


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## Goddess-Bastet (Apr 26, 2019)

Usually you can access photos by connecting the iPhone to the pc via cable & opening it via Computer as you would a normal drive.


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## DaisyNinja (May 25, 2020)

texasbullet said:


> You can buy an external HDD at least 500 GB to store your pictures and other documents in there and still have plenty of space available just in case.


Thankyou for your help. Do you have any recommendations? I have a ASUS vivobook laptop


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## DaisyNinja (May 25, 2020)

DaisyNinja said:


> Thankyou for your help. Do you have any recommendations? I have a ASUS vivobook laptop


And will my photos transfer to the HDD instead of the laptop storage. It wont let me transfer any photos to the laptop as the phone storage exceeds the laptop storage so Im just wondering if it will still let me transfer if I have to transfer to the laptop first?


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## texasbullet (Jun 11, 2014)

DaisyNinja said:


> And will my photos transfer to the HDD instead of the laptop storage. It wont let me transfer any photos to the laptop as the phone storage exceeds the laptop storage so Im just wondering if it will still let me transfer if I have to transfer to the laptop first?


You can transfer all your photos from your laptop into the external drive. Once completed you can delete them from your computer so you can have more space on your c drive. Once all done just disconnect your external drive and connect it again when needed.


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## TerryNet (Mar 23, 2005)

*EDIT*: forget this; just see my next post.



DaisyNinja said:


> but there is only 120 GB and I need 125 GB free to back up my phone


You only have 120 GB or you only have 120 GB free? If the latter, and you cannot copy photos from the phone directly to an external hard drive, can you free up another 5 GB by temporarily copying some of your data to the external drive?


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## TerryNet (Mar 23, 2005)

DaisyNinja said:


> And will my photos transfer to the HDD instead of the laptop storage.


Your choice. As Virginia said in post # 3 you can access the photos on the iPhone as you would photos on any drive. You can then copy (I do not advocate move) them to your choice of destination.


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## DaisyNinja (May 25, 2020)

TerryNet said:


> *EDIT*: forget this; just see my next post.
> 
> You only have 120 GB or you only have 120 GB free? If the latter, and you cannot copy photos from the phone directly to an external hard drive, can you free up another 5 GB by temporarily copying some of your data to the external drive?


I just have a total storage of 120 GB on my laptop and when I try to copy photos either via itunes or directly by plugging my phone in, it wont copy because my phone has 125 GB of storage. Does it stop me copying from a device where the storage is greater than the total availability of my laptop? Is that amount of storage unusually small? It wasnt a cheap laptop but I didnt really have any idea on storage


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## texasbullet (Jun 11, 2014)

You need to leave at least 10 percent free of your HDD so your computer can work well without any issues. If you fill it up you will be having plenty of problems such as freezings or slow responding.


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## TerryNet (Mar 23, 2005)

You probably have an SSD (for faster speed and lighter weight) instead of a hard drive. Anyhow, it doesn't matter. Get an external drive as Ramon advised and use that for much of your data and for backups.


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