Let’s talk about backing up your photos

Have you ever had a hard drive fail? A phone dropped in the water or lost or stolen? An external hard drive that makes that dreaded whirring sound? Or that sinking feeling when you are looking for a photo on your phone from 2013 and you suddenly discover that you have no photos on your phone from 2013?

Remember when these Canada hats made such a splash? My husband and I were lucky enough to live in Salt Lake City during the 2002 Olympics. This photo is one of my favorites of us.

Lost photos are irreplaceable. There is literally nothing you can do to get them back for you besides inventing time travel. You cannot recreate the moment, tell your kids to sit and smile as they did that one time, or re-capture a unique event because, well, it was unique.

Backing up client photos is the most important part of my job. It’s not as exciting as organizing and it’s not as fun for the client as being able to search their library for that perfect shot they knew they took but could not find, but it is the backbone of what I do.

The most common scenario that I remedy: client “Jane” has photos on her phone, and at one point figured a backup was a good idea. So Jane uploads some to Google, some to Facebook, some to Shutterfly, and copies all of her photos to her hard drive. Then a year or two later, she thinks “I haven’t backed up my photos in a while” and does it again. And again, and again. By the time Jane gets to me she has multiple incomplete and overlapping copies of her photos spread out all over the place and is overwhelmed. My first step is to gather all of those copies and remove the duplicates. Once work on Jane’s library is complete, I create ONE comprehensive backup on an external hard drive and copy that backup onto a cloud service, generally one that auto-updates without Jane having to do a thing. That secures her photos in at least two different places.

Here are my favorite ways to back up client libraries (and my own):

One: Fix your iPhone Settings

If you have an iPhone, there are two settings you should check.

• First, turn on iCloud Backup. In settings, click on your name, then iCloud. Scroll about halfway down to iCloud Backup, and turn it on. This will back up your entire phone.

• Second, turn on iCloud Photos. In settings, click on your name, then iCloud, then Photos to on. Most people choose Optimize iPhone Storage to minimize the amount of storage space photos take up on the phone. This does not create a true backup (if you delete a photo from your iPhone it deletes everywhere) but if you lose or break your phone all of your photos will be safely stored in the cloud.

Two: Choose a Cloud Service

Amazon, Dropbox, SmugMug, or another cloud service can automatically upload your camera roll. These work on iPhones and Android phones. They all work passively in the background; set it up then sit back and relax.

If you have Amazon Prime, unlimited photo storage is included in your subscription. Download the Amazon Photos app and set it to automatically upload your photos. Videos are extra, but can be added for a minimal yearly cost.

This is the desktop view of the auto-backup on DropBox, it looks similar on my phone.

DropBox is a paid service that can be used for any files, not just photos, and has the added benefit of re-naming your photos by date as it uploads. Put the app on your phone, set it to auto-upload your camera roll, and that’s it. DropBox will upload both photos and videos.

Here is the phone view of SmugMug’s automatic camera roll upload.

Smugmug* is my personal favorite for photos because it provides a fantastic viewing experience in addition to backing up your photos. You can see some of what SmugMug has to offer on my SmugMug site - this the public, shareable portion, the rest is protected by a variety of privacy screens. As it uploads your camera roll (photos and videos) SmugMug automatically organizes your photos by year and month. You can then create different galleries to share with anyone, either open to the public, password protected, or with an unlisted link.

Three: Subscribe to a Computer Backup Service.

That little restore button provides peace of mind.

In addition to just backing up your photos, a computer backup service will back up everything on your hard drive. If you have a Mac, I highly suggest using Time Machine. But I also subscribe to Backblaze*, which automatically backs up all of the files on my computer and external hard drives and runs in the background. If anything is lost or damaged, I can download it from Backblaze. Do you see the D through G drives? I use external hard drives to backup client data while I am actively working on it, and whenever they are plugged in, they are backed up into my Backblaze account. If my whole computer goes down, Backblaze will send me an external hard drive with all of my files. There are many different companies that offer this service, choose the one that is right for you.

You can get more tips and tricks with step by step instructions by subscribing to my newsletter. If you need help, reach out to me, but please please back up your photos today!

*I get SmugMug and Backblaze credit if you subscribe through my links, so if you do decide to go that way you can help me out too!