In 2026, cloud lockers like Google Drive and OneDrive might as well be mandatory for many people. You can get by without them, but there are too many use cases to ignore. On a basic level, it’s handy to have photos, documents, and other files instantly accessible across multiple devices. My own priority is backup. I depend on my iPhone and laptop for work as much as my personal life, so if something happens to one of them, I need to be able to hit the ground running once I have new hardware unboxed.

These services do have some risks and drawbacks, however. In fact it may be best to avoid them whenever possible, or keep your dependence low enough that you can jump ship with little trouble. I’m going to cover some of the biggest issues here, although there can be others, as you’d imagine.

The cheapest tiers are impractical in the long run

Ladder pricing strikes again

When I first started using cloud lockers, I remember thinking of them as generous. It’s common for them to offer a base amount of storage for free, and the lower-tier subscriptions can be dirt cheap. iCloud+ costs just 99 cents per month under the 50GB tier, and you still get other perks, such as a custom email domain and HomeKit Secure Video.

In reality, this is all just to get you in the door, and eventually pressure you into paying more. Sticking with iCloud as an example, the free version is all but useless, since it comes with 5GB. That may not be enough to backup your core iPhone data, much less multiple devices and all your files. 50GB starts to offer some breathing room, but if you shoot a normal amount of photos and videos, that alone will probably fill up your storage in a few years, if not earlier. I should know — last year, I was forced to bump up to the 200GB iCloud+ plan, which in the US is $3 per month.

Every company is hoping you’ll eventually end up on one of its terabyte-plus plans. You probably won’t find one that costs less than $10 per month, and any account large enough to support an entire family is upwards of $20. That’s $240 per year, mostly for the privilege of retaining access as your file collection inevitably grows.

Platform lock-in is very real

Think hard before you pull the trigger

To be fair, any storage service worth using will have apps across multiple platforms, and you may not even need a client app on your laptop or desktop computer, since there are web and folder sync tools. You’d rightfully be angry if Google wouldn’t let you access your citizenship or tax documents because you dared to switch from Android to iPhone.

The trick is that the services native to your devices — Apple iCloud, Google Drive, or Microsoft OneDrive — all offer benefits that disappear if you switch to another platform. On a Windows PC, for example, OneDrive, can automatically backup not just key file folders, but OS settings and your desktop layout. That’s incredibly handy when you migrate from one PC to another. On a Mac, the only one of those features that carries over is syncing file libraries.

This discrepancy is so severe that you can easily end up paying for multiple services. I pay for iCloud+, OneDrive, and Google Drive, the first two for settings backup as much as anything. Spreading things out can at least save you some cash — I pay less for that trio than I would a single 2TB plan. The tradeoff is that I sometimes have to remember which service a particular file is on.

Your files may not be fully private

Pay attention to those terms of service

As a rule, cloud services do care about security. Your data is typically protected by heavy encryption, dedicated IT staff, and measures like two-factor authentication (2FA). I’ve made it a policy to turn on 2FA whenever possible, since even if a hacker successfully steals or brute-forces my login, they won’t be able to break through without that second authentication method.

What you might not realize is that many services (like the big three from the last section) don’t enable end-to-end encryption by default. This means that the host company can potentially unlock your files, say if it’s served an order by a police or national intelligence agency. In fact, Google openly acknowledges scanning for material that’s illegal or otherwise violates its policies. If you’ve done nothing wrong, you’ve likely got nothing to fear — but some governments can change the definition of “wrong” on a whim, and no one likes the idea of an eye over their shoulder.

You can get end-to-end encryption, but frequently this involves jumping through hoops. Apple, for instance, requires you to manually enable a feature called Advanced Data Protection, likely because it’s far easier to recover an iCloud account without that barrier in the way. If you want storage with end-to-end encryption out of the gate, you need to sign up for a “zero knowledge” service that may not be as convenient for daily use.