iCloud isn't renewing — three options for the family
My sister's iCloud subscription stopped renewing — the card isn't accepted anymore, and once the data spills over the 5 GB free tier, new photos will stop syncing. She asked what to do. Sharing because a lot of people are in the same situation right now.
Three working paths, ordered by complexity.
1. Yandex Disk — the simplest path
199 ₽/month for 200 GB. Accepts regular Russian cards, no tricks. The Yandex Disk iOS app does automatic photo upload — exactly the way iCloud Photos does it: install, allow, the camera starts uploading everything on its own.
Yandex ships an iCloud import tool at disk.yandex.ru/import. Apple still allows data export from Russian Apple IDs — payment is blocked, export works. Sign in, authorize, wait overnight — photos and files migrate over.
An hour to set up, then it runs itself. For most families this is enough.
2. Self-hosted — Synology or another NAS
If you already have a Synology or another network-attached storage device at home, there's a fully free path. Synology Photos + the DS Photo iPhone app do the same thing as iCloud Photos: auto-upload, albums, face search. Except the data lives in your house, under your full control.
Honest tradeoffs: you depend on your home internet and power, and someone in the family has to keep an eye on the box. If you're a technical user and want to build it yourself — great. If you're not technical — this can be painful: something breaks, and the photos are unreachable until you fix it.
This is the path I'm planning for myself. Not for my sister.
3. Hybrid — free Apple tier + Yandex for photos
Easy to overlook: the free Apple tier (5 GB) still syncs Notes, Reminders, Mail, Contacts, and Calendar. That data is small — fits within 5 GB with room to spare. Which means the basic Apple-device sync keeps working without iCloud+.
iPhone backups can be done locally to a Mac via Finder — free, reliable, never leaves the house. Photos and files go to Yandex Disk from option 1.
Net result: you stop paying for iCloud+, the essentials don't go anywhere. This option works well if there's a Mac in the family.
What to pick depends on how technical the user is and where the rest of the family's data lives.
For my sister I recommended option 1: Yandex Disk, hour of setup, don't touch it again. For myself I'm planning option 2 — because the Synology is already there and I want everything at home. That choice doesn't apply to her.
The main thing — don't drag it out. Once iCloud+ ends fully, new photos just stop going to the cloud. Better to migrate calmly in advance than after losing a week of pictures.
There isn't one answer for everyone. And that's fine.