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VA valentina.marino CH 🔍 Enthusiast 💬 18 answers ⚑

iCloud uses end-to-end encryption for photos if you turn on "Photos in iCloud" in settings, so your data is pretty safe from external hackers. It's not paranoid to worry about it, but honestly most people I know sync everything without issues - I myself have 300GB of photos up there and sleep soundly at night, even though I also use an external drive as backup because yeah, I'm a bit of a digital hypochondriac too lol.

EL Elisa Ricci IT 🔍 Enthusiast 💬 24 answers ⚑

One thing: are you more worried about data stolen by Apple itself or by external hackers?

The difference matters because the answer changes. If we're talking about people trying to hack Apple's servers, then yeah, iCloud+ end-to-end encryption is solid, especially with photos. Apple doesn't have the keys to decrypt your files, so theoretically they can't look at your photos either. It's decent from a technical security standpoint, it's not paranoid to think about it that way.

But here's the thing a lot of people don't consider: the real problem isn't so much iCloud as a service, but your Apple account. If someone steals your Apple ID password (phishing, weak password, or you accidentally give it out), they have access to everything. Two-factor authentication is essential here, it's not optional. Then there's another thing: even if your data is encrypted, Apple still knows at the metadata level that you have that file, when you created it, file size, all that stuff. It's not the contents but still something.

If 500GB keeps you up at night, honestly a hybrid approach works better: keep on iCloud only the photos you're not worried about. For the more sensitive ones, an external hard drive offline at home, or one of those external drives with local encryption. I know it sounds complicated but you sleep better. It's not paranoia, it's just knowing where your stuff is.

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