Creating a photo and video backup system sounds easy to do, but it’s time consuming. As a keeper of memories, I’ve recorded thousands of family videos and images to create videos and photobook to keep. But it wasn’t until my children were in their teens did I find time to sort them.
No matter which stage in life you’re in, now is still a good time to arrange your photos and videos. Lets face it, we will always lack time doing things. But learning to make time will make accessing our family memories easier. I’ve learned a few tricks that has helped me climb over the hurdles. And in this post, I’d like to share them with you.
Are you ready to sort your photos and videos for easy access. Lets do this!
Photo and Video Backup System
In all my years of keeping family memories, I’ve learned to have at least three copies of external backup. Two external hard drives and one in an online cloud storage system. In case of natural disasters like fire or floods which can happen to any of us here in Australia.
Remember a monthly routine downloading photos from your camera, SD cards or mobiles helps you avoid the no space dilemma. Don’t forget to check your partner or children’s mobile for any unknown photos take of the family.
More importantly, when your computer crashes, or your hard drive fails, at least you have a backup. I recently spilled coffee on my keyboard, you see my point. Right? You name it, I’ve experienced all types of crashes and saved many hard drive failures too. But if you have a routine backup system, you don’t have to go into frantic panic mode. The best way to make sure you don’t lose your memories is to create a photo and video backup system.
Here’s how you can start sorting and arranging your photos and videos for backup.
1. Gather All Images into One Location
This can be your laptop as a start. This is the main place where you control your memories. This is not a place where you consider your backup. Because your collection can run up to hundreds or thousands of images and videos. And there won’t be any space or your computers can crash easily. Instead, use this space to start separating what you wish to keep or remove.
2. Download Software to Help Finding Duplicates
The one I use is call Duplicate Photo Finder. Once installed you can choose a drive and click to find any duplicates. Makes life so much easier for you especially if you’re sorting through thousands at a time. Remove your duplicates, blur photos or any other landscape or screenshot photos.
3. Keep it in the Cloud – Perfect for Extremely Precious Photos
I prefer to keep precious photos and videos up in the cloud. Online storage system are easy to find and some offer you free storage. Use them until your collection grows, then pay for extended space. If you make time to remove those duplicates or other unwanted photos, you save up on space.
Dropbox is my favourite when using cloud. I’ve used them for years and find it easy to use. You can turn on the sync only backup link to your laptop or manually upload certain photos or videos.
4. Prepare External Drive
Once you have started arranging your memory collection, both photos and videos, prepare your external hard drive. Copy entire collection to your external hard drive. Depending on the size of your transfer, this can take an hour or more. Unless you transfer bit by bit. I keep three drives to give a copy to each my children and keep one for me. Many people often choose to keep a copy offsite if possible.
5. Create a Regular Backup Schedule for Transferring Your Photos and Videos
Do you regularly backup of memories? We often don’t realise how many photos we take until we lose space in our mobiles. That’s a sure sign for us to start backup.
Once you have these procedures in place, schedule a time to transfer your photos regularly. A monthly backup routine is a good start or quarterly if you don’t take many photos monthly. Be consistent with this routine to protect your family stories. And so you don’t get overwhelmed with finding photos for future projects.
Make Time to Create Future Projects
I have taken so long to sort my own family photos and videos. But I’m glad I have them in order. My children are grown up now with means, I’m working on family projects for them. When your photos are sorted, consider making time to create a family projects like a photobook or photo slideshow videos.
