I let my phone pictures go to Google Photos automatically. I clicked on the setting “High quality (free unlimited storage)”, so I don’t have to worry about space.
Retrieving is easy enough. There’s a “download” option when the pics are on screen.
For pictures taken with my cameras, for scans, and for the few phone pictures that I want at full resolution instead of mere “High Quality”, I have a free 50GB Box.com account. (I don’t remember how I earned that).
The Box.com cloud is a mirror of files on my desktop PC and on a laptop. It’s automatic. If I save anything to the Box folder on a computer, it goes up to the cloud. So retrieving those isn’t necessary.
I have a networked drive at home to back up large files (raw camera files, tiff scans, Photoshop files) which are not backed up online. Those are material for making “normal” sized images, which DO get uploaded.