Your Photos Deserve a Backup
Photo source: iStock
A phone can hold thousands of photographs without you really thinking about it. Family birthdays, holidays, old scanned photographs, grandchildren growing up—years of memories can end up living on a single device. The problem is that phones can be lost, damaged, or replaced, and a photo that’s stored nowhere else can disappear with it.
Backing up your photographs doesn’t have to be complicated. Many phones can automatically upload photos to a cloud storage service. Depending on your device, this might be Apple’s iCloud or a service such as Google Photos. Once it’s set up, new photographs can be backed up automatically whenever your phone has an internet connection.
Check that backup is actually working rather than assuming it is. Open your photo service from another device, such as a computer, and make sure you can see some of your recent photographs there. This simple check can prevent a nasty surprise later.
It’s also worth considering a second backup for photographs that are particularly important. You could copy them to an external hard drive or another storage device. Keeping another copy in a different physical location provides additional protection if your computer or home is damaged.
Be mindful of storage limits. Free cloud storage can fill up surprisingly quickly when you’re dealing with years of photographs and videos. Your provider may offer additional storage for a monthly fee, but compare the options and choose something that fits your needs.
Old photographs deserve attention, too. If you’ve inherited boxes of printed family photographs, consider scanning the most important ones. You don’t necessarily need to digitise an entire collection in one weekend. Start with photographs that would be particularly difficult or impossible to replace.
And before deleting photographs from your phone to free up space, confirm that they’ve been backed up successfully. Your phone is convenient for taking photographs. It shouldn’t be the only place those memories exist.
