I am writing this in March of 2020, right at the beginning of the outbreak, in the US, of the Coronavirus. The world is being turned on end. Gatherings have been canceled, schools closed, people are beginning to try and figure out what is going to happen with their lives and many are either stuck at home or will be. Whether you are working from home, or just staying isolated to avoid coming in contact with others, you may be going a little stir crazy wondering what to do next.
I decided I would write a series of posts for those of you who are stuck at home and want a project or two to do while you’re isolated.
This first post is something basic, something you should be doing on an ongoing basis but somehow many of us, maybe most of us, don’t do, and that is back up our photos.
Back up your photos
Your photos can be some of the most precious things you have. They are the memories of your life. Losing them would be devastating. I remember a news report of a fire in the Oakland CA. hills years ago, people lost everything. One woman was interviewed after the fire and when asking about it, she had said the first thing she thought about saving was her wedding album. You can replace almost everything else, but not your photos.
If you like most people today, you have all your photos on your phone. Photos from events and special occasions can’t be replaced. What if you lost your phone or it just stopped working. Do you have access to those photos at some other location? If not, now is the time to get a system in place.
Backup strategy.
First off, let’s talk about what a back up is. if you have your photos on your phone and on a service, like google photos, that’s a backup. You have photos on two locations, but if you delete them from your phone you no longer have a backup.
I always have two copies of my photos, whether they be business images or personal. One is on my main home computer and one on my work computer or in the cloud.
Two copies in two different locations. The reason for that is because of what could happen if your computer is stolen, or there’s a fire. If both copies are in the same place, everything is gone.
Keeping photos in the cloud also has a big positive, you have them available from any device no matter where you are. but, when it comes to cloud services, what is the best cloud service to use? Here’s a list of some of the most popular.
Google photos
I used an android phone this was kind of a no brainer. Google is integrated into the android system. All the photos you take with your phone are backed up automatically. If you an Apple user you can always install google photos on your phone or iPad.
Positives: Google photos is free for an unlimited amount of photos. You have the ability to do some basic editing to the photos, you can share them directly from the app and you can organize them into albums.
Negatives: Google photos compress the files a little, but if you’re viewing all of them on your phone or computer screen you’ll never notice. Also, you can’t nest albums within albums. I like to create folders on my computer based on the year things were taken, so I have the year 2018 Photos and inside that folder, I have folders labeled as to what the event or occasion was. With Google Photos I can’t make an album for some trip or event within that year’s album. That’s is a bummer.
Amazon photos.
If your a prime member Amazon photos is an unlimited backup for your photos
Positives: No resolution loss, full-size files are stored online. Unlimited storage for Prime members. A folder system (in amazon Drive, not in the app) that allows nested folders. Handy and something I like. I can replicate what is on my computer and find photos easier but you can’t view them in the app like that.
Negatives: If you let your prime membership expire, the limit becomes 5gb and anything you have on the service above that limit will be deleted three months from the time your membership expires.
iCloud
For apple users its iCloud, like google photos, this is automatic for photos on your phone. Free storage is limited to 5GB for everything to back up, but plans start out at just .99 cents a month for 50gb of. storage.
I’m not going into detail on how to set up each account, a quick google search can do that. This article is just a little nudge to getting the process started. So if your stuck at home and looking for something to do, begin by getting those photos backed up.
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