Your family's memories shouldn't come with a monthly bill. One $9.99 purchase lets you move your photos to a hard drive at home — when you want, as often as you like — with no ongoing fees.
🌟 See what you could save
That is 24x the cost of Sling Photos back in your pocket over the next 5 years.
No payment today · 7-day free trial · Then just $9.99 once
No subscription. Cancel trial anytime in iPhone Settings.
This is the thought that stops most people from doing anything. It is a completely reasonable concern.
Your photos stay exactly where they are on your iPhone and in iCloud. The app makes a copy on your drive. Nothing is removed until you decide to do it yourself.
A fair concern. Any single piece of hardware can fail.
Your drive becomes a third copy, not a replacement. You keep iCloud running alongside Sling Photos for as long as you like. Two copies is always safer than one.
This is the reason most people stay stuck paying for iCloud forever.
You choose when to run an archive, review what will be copied, and tap Sling. The app does the work — but you are the one who started it. No technical knowledge required. Most people are set up in under 10 minutes.
Every step has plain-English instructions. If anything goes wrong, the app tells you exactly what to check.
Minute 1
Install the app. Your 7-day free trial starts automatically. No payment needed yet.
Minutes 2–5
Plug a USB hard drive into your Mac or laptop. The app finds it and walks you through a simple two-step connection.
Minutes 5–8
Type in your kids' names. The app uses face recognition on your phone to find every photo of them automatically.
Minutes 8–10
The app runs in the background and sends you a notification when done. Your photos land on your drive, organised by person and date. You chose when this happened — you can check it, verify it, and run it again whenever you like.
After that
Once you have run a few archives and feel confident your most important photos are on your drive, you can look at reducing your iCloud plan in iPhone Settings. There is no rush — Sling Photos and iCloud work perfectly well side by side for as long as you like.
You don't need any special equipment. Any of the following will work.
If you have a Mac at home, you already have everything you need. Turn on one setting called File Sharing in System Settings. Sling Photos finds your Mac automatically over Wi-Fi and your photos go straight onto it.
A 1TB or 2TB USB drive from any electronics store. Plug it into your Mac or laptop while Sling Photos is running. A 1TB drive holds roughly 250,000 photos — more than most families will ever take.
Many home routers have a USB port on the back. Plug a drive into it and it becomes available to every device in your home, including Sling Photos, without needing a laptop switched on.
For people who want a drive running 24/7 without a computer on, a NAS device is the long-term option. Sling Photos works with all of them. But you do not need one to get started.
What iCloud storage actually costs over time — and what you keep instead.
iCloud 50GB
$0.99 per month
$12
per year
$60 over 5 years
iCloud 200GB
$3.99 per month
$48
per year
$239 over 5 years
iCloud 2TB
$12.99 per month
$156
per year
$780 over 5 years
Sling Photos
$9.99
One payment. All future updates included. Works on every iPhone you own.
The average family on iCloud 200GB saves $229 in the first 5 years alone.
Keep reading
Try it free for 7 days. You stay in control at every step — you decide when to archive, what to include, and when you feel ready to reduce your iCloud plan. If it is not right for you, cancel in Settings before day 7. No risk at all.
No payment today · Cancel anytime in iPhone Settings · iPhone with iOS 17+