A Beginner’s Guide to Backing Up Photos

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Backing up the photos from your phone or camera is one of the safest ways to preserve your most memorable moments.

Introduction

If you’ve ever lost pictures on a camera, phone, or hard drive, you know how important it is to back up and store your photos properly which you can do in a number of ways. You can use the hard drive on your computer or laptop, an external hard drive, or a cloud service from companies like Google, Amazon, Apple or DropBox.

 

How Cloud Services Work

Using a cloud service is an effective way to safeguard your photos. Most well-known services offer convenient features like “automatic backup”, that help make the process easier. This feature automatically uploads and stores new photos you take on your phone or tablet directly to the cloud.

Which Service is Better?

If you’re deciding which cloud service to use, there are several factors to consider. Each service typically allots users a specific amount of space, with the option to purchase more. The amount of space you’ll need depends on how often you take and upload photos. Prices can range anywhere from $.99/month for 50GB to $99/year for one TB.

Picture Quality

The photo quality each cloud service offers is another factor to consider. When you upload digital photos to social media sites like Facebook, the image resolution on your phone or tablet is downsized to make it smaller. Not all cloud services will allow you to keep your photo’s original resolution once you upload it, though, which is important to note.

Back Up Your Back Up

Online cloud storage services are a great tool for backing up and storing your photos, however, they aren’t foolproof. There is always the risk of hacks, glitches, or failures which could potentially cause you to lose your photos. Using an external hard drive in conjunction with cloud picture backups allows you to store photos in at least two safe places.

In this digital age, it’s easy to take and post pictures from our computers, cell phones, and tablets. In order to safeguard those memories, it’s important to keep copies of your pictures and store them in at least two safe places like an external hard drive, thumb drive, or cloud service.