(Check out this week’s blog love for some great posts…)
I have a problem.
You wouldn’t know it by looking at me. I don’t hoard normal things like QVC products and winter coats and cough medicine.
I hoard photographs…rather….my computer hoards them. It is bogged down with eight years worth of pictures and videos. And they are not backed up.
I KNOW! It’s dangerous…I know. If something were to happen to my computer I would throw myself into a wall. Repeatedly. While screaming, “HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN TO ME!?!?!!”
I should have taken a hint when my computer started acting all crazy like…refusing to be turned off….working slowly…flashing scary “help me before I blow up in your face” screens.
Rather than “fix” my computer, I told Pat that it’s “vintage” and that I should really just have a new one. So he did what any thoughtful husband WOULD do.
He bought himSELF a computer and gave me his. My vintage computer still sits in questionable condition and I have to be honest. I’m worried about it.
So I decided to do the scary thing. I’ve decided to back up the pictures on The Vintage and learn how to create dvds from the videos and….brace yourselves….DELETE the folders upon folders of photos from my computer.
I have no idea what I’m doing. It’s comical. I have a trillion old cds with pictures on them from when I decided to do this three years ago, but then never deleted the photos I was attempting to back up. So now I have no idea what’s on those cds…where they start and end etc. I have an account with Costco that has various albums with no rhyme or reason, and I have a Flickr account that has most of my recent bloggable photos. But there is little order to my photo filing system. Each folder is labeled by the month and year, but none of the photos are named. There is no complete package that has ALL my stuff on it other than this computer.
It’s a mess.
And in an effort to get more sleep I thought it would be a great idea to take on….the…undertaking of getting things in order at 10pm on a Sunday night.
I don’t know what else to tell you other than I’m super smart like that.
This is going to take forever.
I successfully deleted February…and then panicked and retrieved it from my recycling bin…because what if the cds get lost and Costcos website is destroyed and my Flickr account is removed and the USB memory card thing is lost…THEN WHAT!?!
I’ll tell you then what…then I’m screwed. And I’ll never remember my babies.
I have a feeling this is going to be a slow journey for me. Instead of “backing up” the files I’m just creating more ways for me to access them. Just in case. It’s like when those people who go to help the hoarders try to throw something away and the hoarders start making excuses for why they have to keep that particular item…and every single item is hemmed and hawed over before the hoarder just kicks everyone out because they simply can’t part with ANYTHING.
Yeah that’s me.
How do you back up your files and photos? Am I the only one with an unhealthy attachment to the bajillion pictures on my computer?
And please take a moment and marvel at the most adorable little singer ever! I was telling my friends how ridiculously cute Maile was when she was two…here’s the video I was talking about girls.
Karen & Gerard Zemek says
I have my photos backed up on CDs. I just take my memory cards to CVS and pay a few dollars for them to put them on a CD for me. I have my CDs stored in the basement in a filing box my dad made for his lock business. I do try to delete pictures from time to time that I really don’t think I’ll use–mostly ones I take for specific blog posts. I also use the Kodak software to touch up, crop and resize my pics so have over 1,000 on there.
Of course, you could always print them out and put them in photo albums. I do print out the special ones.
MrsW says
I’ve always hated CDs for backup – I scratch/lose/spill jam on them.
The only solution I feel safe with (having lost March to December 2006 – somewhere) is to surround myself with nearly 2 terabytes of external hard disks with multiple copies of every photo on them. Since I remember the awe with which we received our first box of 1.44 Mb floppy disks (which were no longer actually floppy) this amuses me no end. I feel like a mad cat lady, they’ll find me in my decrepitude buried beneath a mountain of hard drives – but I bet I have all my photos (which by then will be on some unreadable format… probably).
Los says
I have an external hard-drive as well – that’s where I keep my photos, videos, and mp3s (and other documents that are important). I’m not good about organizing my photos, but am getting better – it’s really all about creating a good folder structure and going back through your photos and organizinng (lots of time needed for this).
parenting BY dummies says
I’m right there with you and lemme tell ya, I’ve got thousands, literally. And, I’m so far into it that I don’t know what to do with them and like you I’m scared. So, you figure it all out and then tell lil ole me what to do. Sounds like a plan. I’ll be waiting:)
Sara says
CDs make me really nervous. We tried to back up about a months’ worth of photos on a CD once. I didn’t delete the original files, but when I went to play back the CD on a different computer, no dice. It was corrupted. Or something.
So we have an external hard drive. Two, in fact. One for backing up photos, one for backing up the blog. So if there’s ever a fire or something like that, we just unplug those bad boys and RUN. Voila. THE WORLD IS SAVED.
P.S. How cute is Maile? Good gracious.
Amanda says
I have an external hard drive that I back everything up to. I’ve been really bad though and haven’t backed anything up lately. I just trust it more than CDs and such.
amber d. says
Okay, I only had from 2007 on…not 8 years worth of 3 kids! Darn this digital age!!! ;)
Melissa says
no, I horde pictures too. Its scary. I have various photo sharing accounts, but all my pictures are on this crappy computer, not backed up…
But heres the kicker, I have a memory card that holds a TON of pictures (like 2k worth) and every picture I have take for nearly a year is still on my camera too…
I cant bring myself to delete them….
robin says
The video…Awwww so cute…I love those memories..I have similar ones ..now I feel like getting them out….good luck with your deleting and restoring..what a big job..Ive been there too…then i bought that backup thingy…works great..
Stephanie @ Geezees says
I Aw..that video is adorable!
Coco says
I am the same way. CD’s do get broken. Portable hard drives can die and have. It would cost a fortune to back them all up to an online service. Flickr hasn’t seen me in a year. I probably need to pay them. Yikes. When you figure it out let me know.
Jenn says
Haha, I have definitely been regifted a computer by the guy who says “don’t worry, I’ll take care of it for you. I’ll get you a new one.” He just means new to me.
Good luck sorting through the photos!
erica says
Oh, my…. I feel your pain. We must be on the same wave length or something because I just did the whole “Time Machine” backup on my Mac this weekend. It’s an application that automatically backs up everything new on your puter ever time you run it with your external hard drive. And the best thing is it can GO BACK IN TIME ! to reveal all the things that were on your desk top from a particular date.
I think you are supposed to keep three backups of everything… three. Yeah, who has time for that???
Evonne says
You’re really talking about me and the tons of pictures I have on my vintage machine, right? Sadly, at least half on still on the camera, too. But what if I break the camera (again) and my computer crashes and I lose everything. Panic!!!
I really need to back things up, too. Let me know if you come up with any easy tips.
Miss Angie says
I recommend HIGHLY an external hard drive, as well as an online backup solution. I use Mozy (but you can only backup what is currently on any given machine) and it’s unlimited for only $4.95 a month. (( I used to work for them )) So if my computer ever crashes, whatever was backed up on it will be safe and sound. :)
Lori says
I recently backed up 6 months of pictures. There were over 10,000 images. I might be obsessive.
Kim M says
I am a photo hoarder too (and I’m seriously so happy to have found others like me!). We put all of our photos on cds (2 copies of every cd). Then we put our cds safely in cases and put one copy of each in a safe storage place at home and my husband took another copy to a safe storage place in his office at work (so if there is a fire here, we still have photos). Then I uploaded all of the photos I LOVE to snapfish (and shared the files with grandparents who then did thier own version of backing up the photos). THEN we got an external hard drive and put all of our photos on there. But I, like you, still don’t feel secure that something catastrophic will happen to make me lose them forever…
Foursons says
I have all my photos on my external hard drive but I don’t delete them from my computer once I have done that. It’s so much easier to access them on the computer than the external hard drive.
That video is too cute. I love how she was turning away done with singing and you got her attention right back and she finished up.
3 Men & a Lady says
I am in the same situation. I have lots of pics (of which I take too many to start with) and I have many not on cd. And my memory card is jam packed and needs emptied. Argh! And I don’t even know what an exteranl hard drive is! I usually print the good pics and put everything (including bad pics) on cd like negatives. And I have boxes of negatives from my pre-digital days. You never know when you will need to reprint a prom picture from 1997!
Joy says
Back them up NOW!! I am not sure how much I lost when my computer crashed on me a couple summers ago I say I am not sure because I was able to get some from hubs computer and I had backed some up but it hurts my head to think of the ones I was unable to save. It is really painful
So I try to back them up but then I forget and like you get overwhelmed at the thought. I did get a new computer for xmas and transferred stuff from the old to this one so atleast they are on 2 computers now:)
I did price external hard drives but they are a bit pricey-I know the pictures are priceless it is just this girl does have a price that she is able to actually afford.
so for now I have 2 computers, multiple cds, a small plug in. My problem is I take so many I can’t even fit a whole file on one cd:)
Jennifer says
My method is to sit with my fingers crossed and to hope that the nasty computer crashing thing only happens to other people.
Kimmers says
Don’t feel bad, none of my pictures are backed up either, and even my freaking CAMERA is loaded with tons of crap… even though all those pictures are ALSO on my computer… it’s ridiculous. AND most all of my pictures are already printed and in albums or scrapbooks! And yet I can’t delete… what if I want to reprint?!
angie says
Another good reminder to back up my photos. :)
Mel says
Seeing as computers hate me and always die on me…I’ve had to learn to save my photos elsewhere! Most commonly I use photobucket…but now all the good ones are on Facebook anyway…
I really should work on printing and albuming them since that is the best way to look at them IMO anyway!
Trudy says
That video is stinkin adorable! I don’t have tons of pics yet but know I will be an official hoarder when our little one enters the world in a few months! I’ll just stay tuned to see what your brilliant mind comes up with and then follow suit! Because I just like to cheat like that…mmmhmmm.
BelovedAimee says
mine are in folder year & month..backed up on hard drive because I DID learn the hard way and now have zero pictures from 2005. not cool.
BelovedAimee says
***external hard drive
Kallay says
Oh!! I am so that person. Which is why I finally invested in an external hard drive. All of my pictures AND music are stored on this fancy little thing. I love it. I can sleep peacefully knowing that all of my hard earned itunes and my glorious memories are safe on this fantastic invention. I highly recommend one for you. As you load the pictures onto it, try organizing them as you go. Yeah, it’ll take a while, but it’s totally worth it. Peace of mind? Yes, please. I don’t do the CD thing because I’m terrified Hercules will eat one or Maddie will lick half of my family reunion off. The external gives me plenty of peace of mind. Hope that helps!
Also… the ABC thing… so cute. I gave my nephew the ABC Leap Frog DVD too. I love that thing. (maybe even more than he did, which was a lot!)
Mama Kat says
How many of those external hard drive things do you need? I bought a 2gig one and it filled up super fast. The cd idea scares me a little too…but I guess it couldn’t urt to back up the back ups with some.
Lisa Anne says
OMG Speaking of Hoarders, have you seen that TV show hoarders is WOW. That’s all I can say about that show is OMG. I will never hoard anything. I can’t believe people lose thier children over hoardering. At least it’s only photos you hoard. I don’t trust keeping my photos on the computer. I’ve lost to many things with system crashes.
Mama Kat says
I HAVE seen that show! There’s something crazy wrong in a person’s brain when they feel okay letting their house get like that. I don’t get it. Like…once the living room was filled up and un-livable (which defeats the purpose) wouldn’t you stop and have a little chat with yourself? CRAY-ZAY!
Michelle says
I have all mine on my computer- mostly in iPhoto, but some are scattered throughout the hard drive. My computer savvy hubby put an automatic backup drive somewhere in the house and it uploads everything to prevent me losing them by some of my stupidity. I really need to organize mine too… There will be time when the kids are in school, right?
Mama Kat says
Okay forget the hard drives and back ups and what not…where can I get a computer savvy husband??
Jenn says
You are most certainly not alone! I like to have my photos on my computer, on my camera, in my photobucket, on cd etc. They need to be all of those places just in case. I even have pictures of my son from age 0-4 on floppy disk…I cannot even access them at my home computer because new computers do not have floppy disk slots. Pfft. I took them once to the library to try to get them loaded to the computer then burnt to a cd and was mocked by the librarian for my archaic disks.
Mama Kat says
Floppy disks….hahaha…remember those!?! Crazy how fast technology seems to develop. Soon I’ll just need to insert my thumb and have everything saved there.
S Club Mama says
oh she’s so precious. was that kainoa in the back? do you guys have one of those fridge phonics things, too?
Mama Kat says
No that was Laina in back! And yes we totally have the fridge phonics…though I couldn’t begin to tell you where all the pieces have gone since then.
Jade @ No Longer 25 says
Did you read Melissa’s post over at A Familiar Path recenlty about this? (Link below) She is so super organised. I’m not doing too badly but I really need to delete all those out of focus and over exposed shots. I’ve got an external HD and it’s the way forward, so quick and easy.
Jade
http://www.afamiliarpath.com/2010/01/how-do-you-organize-your-photos.html
Mama Kat says
Oooh thanks for the link! I’ll check it out for sure!
Jenny says
She is so cute. I just went thru the same things with photos, I backed them up on a flash drive and ordered about $100 or more of prints that I thought needed to be in an album, but I still have them on my hard drive and panic when I put them in the recycle bin.
Mama Kat says
Hahaha…the panic to me is hilarious. I was all “okay, this one is backed up. Everything is fine. I see it right there in the removable hard drive. I can….recycle.” click and done. and then “wellllll….I better recover that and just wait a little longer to make SURE it’s on the removable hard drive when I put it in another computer.”
Scaredy cats.
Emmy says
We have a Mac, so we have Time Machine-which backs up everything..
And we also use a service called Carbonite. It backs up everything on our computer to a remote site, so if our house burned down, once we got a new computer we could get everything back.
Also, I get pictures printed about every 6 months. I go back and pick out my favorites and get them printed. It is nice to have real pictures too.
Mama Kat says
I do like to get pictures printed. I wait too long to that stuff though and then end up spending 100 bucks and then I put it off because I don’t want to drop 100 on pictures and I just keep digging myself deeper.
Jack says
I have 17 copies of each photo because it is ever so likely that I’ll lose every other picture 16 times.
Mama Kat says
Hahaha…yes I’m afraid that’s what it’s coming to for me as well. I MIGHT damage or lose 10 or 13 copies of one picture…but certainly not 17. BRILLIANT!
stefanie says
external hard drive backed up onto another external hard drive. cds are not an effective way of backing up files because they become damaged SO easily.
printing pictures is awesome too. it doesn’t replace your digital files but it’s still really nice to have hard copies of your favorite photos!
Alicia says
External Hard drive. I got a terabyte (TB) and it’s holding THOUSANDS of full-sized (4MB each) photos and I now sleep at night. I even bought I fire/water proof “safe” to store the external hard drive in. Obsessive or Smart? You decide. They can cost more then you may initially be willing to spend (maybe, maybe not) but ITS WORTH IT!
PS. True story, I had a dream last night that I met you IRL… I dont know what that is supposed to mean, but thought I should let you know. lol.
Mama Kat says
I think that means you should come to Bloggy Boot Camp in Baltimore and make it a REALITY! ;)
And sometimes obsessive is smart. Like that time I wouldn’t let my boyfriend go two hours without talking to me and now I’m his wife. Totally worked.
hotpants™ says
I have all of my photos on Flickr. Once I upload them, I delete them. I keep meaning to put them on a second site. Some are. Some aren’t. If anything happens to Flickr, I will have to murder someone.
Mama Kat says
How do you print them off from flickr? Do they turn out as nice when you use that site or is the quality of the picture affected at all?
hotpants™ says
I’ve never used Flickr’s print service so I can’t say. I use MPix. I’m extremely happy with their prices and quality.
Katie (aka Kekibird) says
Ok, I was TOTALLY sweating as I read this. The task for removing your pictures from your desktop/laptop to backup them up was LAST years resolution and I never did it (hangs head in shame). Now I have a new laptop and I have to do it so I can feel my pictures are safe. I’m scared!!!!
Mama Kat says
We’ll walk through this together. I didn’t make a new year’s resolution, but somehow in a matter of a couple days decided I HAVE to do this NOW.
I’m impulsive like that. :)
Molly Doe says
I too am a hoarder, although I haven’t been hoarding for quite a year yet, so maybe there’s still hope. But I have serious fears about losing all my pictures. I like the idea of the fireproof safe, I actually thought about getting one of those last night.
Mama Kat says
There’s still time for you. THERE’S STILL TIME!! Go buy an external hard drive…when you click it in to your computer you can drag an entire files over and drop them into the hard drive. It will just copy all the files and pics so it doesn’t actually LEAVE the place you’re dragging it from and you can delete them when you’re ready. :)
adrianscrazylife says
I tweeted this, but I don’t know if you got it. I use Mozy.com for daily, automatic backups of all my photos because like you, I have a ton of them and I am completely paranoid about losing them. It’s free up to like 2 mg and then it’s $4.95 a month after that – unlimited. It just goes in at like midnight every night and finds any new pictures or files and backs them all up automatically.
If you have other clutter problems, you might enjoy this post – http://adrianscrazylife.blogspot.com/2010/01/clutter-game.html.
Mama Kat says
Oooh…thanks for the link!! That might be exactly what I need!
AmyAmyBoBamey says
I have THOUSANDS of pictures too! I am so scared of losing them. I back them all up and all the music up to a external hard drive. I told Hubby I want to get one of those sticks to backup them to as well because I am so afraid of losing them all.
Mama Kat says
Wait…aren’t those sticks exactly what an external hard drive is? Or is the external hard drive the ones you do online?
sarah @caiafa craziness says
save your self the cost of dvd’s and buy yourself a 1 terabyte external harddrive and transfer all to there. I bought mine at best buy for 89.00 it holds up to 4 million pictures. It will take you years to fill it up. I back up once a week.
Mama Kat says
89 is NOT bad for that many pictures!
Luschka says
Oh, I had, last time I checked about a year ago, upwards of 20 000 pics spanning my whole life. And that’s pre baby. It’s why my pc is so slow. Fact. And I don’t care. I also have them backed up on DVD, and I have a photo album for every year of my life. I love doing a scrapbook style photo album (with many more photos than scrapbooks normally have.) And now I have a bookshelf full of photo albums *sigh*. Oh – and just ‘in case’ my mom has copies of all the DVD’s in her house, a 12 hour flight away.
Mama Kat says
Okay you take the taco. Officially crazier than I am. And I like it.
Jennifer@Musings of a BLonde Mom says
I have my photos backed up on an external hard drive, burned onto CDs and they are also backed up on my Time Capsule (which backs up ALL of my Mac). So, yeah…I totally get it. I’m terrified that if I just do one thing to save my photos, that something will happen to it and I’ll lose them all….so I triple save them. I have thousands off of my computer, but thousands still on it because it take SO long!
Jen @ buried with children says
This post right here makes me so thankful that I married a computer geek. We have a whole server system set up with all our photos on videos on it and it is set up to make backups at of itself in different locations so that if the house burns down we will still have all our photos. I have no idea how it works but it does and I am really thankful.
And that video is the cutest thing ever!
Mama Kat says
I think it’s time for husband swap.
Tanya Jose says
Hi Kathy!! Long time no see!! :) I back my pics up (when i remember) on an external hard drive. Go to best buy, ask the guy to point you to where the external hard drives are. Right now the 1 terabyte external hard drive is like $100 maybe (which is great & it holds a TON of pics). Here’s a little breakdown thing on kilobytes, megabytes & terabytes, that’ll help you understand a little better: · 1024 Kilobytes = 1 Megabyte, 1024 Megabytes = 1 Gigabyte, 1024 Gigabytes = 1 Terabyte. So if you scroll over your “pictures” folder, without clicking anything, a little box will appear that says “Size, Folders, Files,” Look at the “Size” number & that’ll help you determine what size ext. hard drive to get if you don’t want the 1 TB one. and all you do when you get that ext. h.d. is you plug it in via usb cable to your puter, drag your folder to the ext. h.d. & WA-LA! it’s all copied & pasted (you can look if you don’t believe me! LOL). then you can delete it off of your puter & when you want to look at em again or use em, just plug in the doo-hickey & they’ll be right there!! hope that helps & if i repeated someone already, i’m sorry. tell pat i said “hello!” & kiss the kids for me!!
Mama Kat says
You should teach classes on this Tanya. I think an 1TB is exactly what I need to set my mind at ease!
Which means the last 4 hours I spent on this project is all for nothing.
Actually I only saved years 2003 – 2005 so the 1TB can be for everything after that…or maybe I’ll just resave 2003-2005 again just in case. :) I can only imagine how many pictures YOU have saved up! I’m an amateur.
Christopher (AKA: CaJoh) says
I also have a “vintage” computer (one that is now over 10 years old) and my wife keeps telling me she wants the pictures backed up. I kept explaining to her how it might or might not work and she didn’t accept that as an answer. I’ll just have to burn all of the photos onto CD’s and hope she never has to give them away to friends thinking that they are DVD’s.
Mama Kat says
Better yet…all the advice I’m getting is telling me to buy an external hard drive. If you get one with 1 Terabytes on it you can store a bajillion pictures on it. You stick it into your computer and drag all of your folders and pictures over to it. I think that’s exactly what we need!
Amanda @ Serenity Now says
My little one knocked over a glass of water onto my laptop in the Spring and I almost died of grief. Thankfully, a family friend was able to get all of my files off of my hard drive (for free), but I don’t even want to think about how much $$ it would have cost me to have that done at the store. You’re smart to get started now. :)
Cascia @ Healthy Moms says
Sounds like you are taking on a huge project. I usually save my photos on CD’s althoughy it has been a long time since I’ve done that. I’m disorganised. Good luck saving your photos and videos!
kisatrtle says
I too have issues with photos. I just got a back up drive for Christmas, but I still havent moved too many pictures.. Like you said, it’s a slow porcess.
Mama Kat says
Yeah and the longer you wait the worse it gets. SUCH a project.
Jayme says
I do the same thing. Finally my husband bought me a 1.5TB external hard drive for all my pics :)
Mama Kat says
And I like having the pictures right there where I can grab them easily for a post or something. I don’t want to have to track down the photos I’m after.
Christy says
Get a separate external hard drive – cut the folders from your computer and paste them on the hard drive – so easy, and painless ;) I also have ALL of my pictures on Flickr – but was sad to find out that I have to continue to pay them in order to see them all :( bummer! The external hard drive is my best friend ;) and it’s lighter than lugging my 25+ photo albums around ;)
Kathy says
I lost over 5000 pictures when my hard drive crashed last year. I had about 200 of them on photobucket but the rest are gone forever :( now I back up regularly!!
Mama Kat says
I mean…it sounds silly, but I just think that is SOOO sad!! All the time we spend taking just the right picture….all those moments. 5000!! There was nothing you could do?? It’s stories like yours that have me working on this thing to begin with!
Angel says
OK I am right there with you. I have a thing for family photos and carry a camera with me wherever I go .. drives hubby and kids batty. BUT like you I had them all stored on my puter . I finally made CD’s and labelled them of what range they went through. Make yourself a special holder that holds ONLY the pics CD’s and in the front make an index starting with the first CD in teh case and going on down the line. That way you can simply look at th index and go to the CD you need. I also backed a lot of mine up on Picnik and Photobucket and I have an online backup through my web provider that automatically uplaods them the minute I put them on the puter…
Nikki says
honestly i have about 5 boxes of christmas stuff under our bed. Its roomy under there! (or at least it was) i think we need the clean house lady to come to our homes! :)
Salt says
I just did this about a year and a half ago when I bought my new computer. It IS nerve wracking so I ended up backing up everything twice. Because if something happens to one DVD, it surely can’t happen to TWO of them, right?
Oh and that is the cutest child ever.
Mama Kat says
LOVE that idea…I will be backing and double backing. And I will store the second copies in a concealed underground safe.
Alecia says
SOOOOO cute!! If we were friends then, I totally would have kidnapped her like you tried to do to Landon yesterday. Adorable!
Mama Kat says
The funny thing is she was SOOOO bad! I look at those videos and have to remind myself how difficult she was. She bit and hit her friends, she screamed like crazy when she wouldn’t get her way…we butted heads BIG time back then. I was totally out of tricks to try to get her to behave herself. Now I look back and think, “awwww, she’s cute…what was all that fuss about??”
chrissey says
if you have a mac.. you can get a time capsule and it will do it all for you.. automatically.. wirelessly .. magically! ta dah!
Mama Kat says
Hmmm…that sounds like a good enough reason to beg Pat to buy me a Mac. Thank you!
TheKitchenWitch says
You back up your stuff? Oh, gee, I suppose that would make perfect sense. I have never done it…smacking my head against the keyboard…I am a dumbass!
Mama Kat says
Seriously. If I would have just thought to do this and keep up on it every six months or so it wouldn’t be so bad. But there’s SO much stuff. Get started Mama…we can’t be losing all our pictures!
Robin Ilac says
Get an external hard drive and back up to it now! Also try the company Moxy which lets you back up your information online for small fee each month.
Nifer says
I’m like you: I don’t back up my files from my laptop, and I really should because my laptop travels with me, and who knows what could happen. Add that to my resolutions for 2010: get external hard drive and back up all laptop files. I’ve tried going through iPhoto and deleting bad photos… yeah, it is daunting! I feel your pain, Kathy!
Mama Kat says
Just imagine if it got STOLEN! Isn’t it amazing how we’ve come to depend on these computers!?! Whatever happened to just developing photos and putting them in albums??
Hmmm….I should do that too…
Michelle says
Now there is no way I’m reading 70 comments to find out if you got any good advice…i’m holding a newborn here. BUT, if you do, get some good advice that is, please tell us.
I’m a hoarder of pictures too…not only that but I print them and then forget to mark that I printed them and have no idea which pictures are printed and which arent. and because i (now) have 6 kids I have a LOT of pictures. Like millions. I have like millions of pictures…of which only thousands are printed…and only some are saved. BECAUSE i never backed up my old computer I lost about a years worth…but some of htem were printed…only i’ll never know which. and now it’s like that year never happened.
Mama Kat says
Yep…you’re describing EXACTLY what I do! (minus the 6 kids).
So far people are saying to back up using a removable drive. I guess there are places online that you can pay to keep your files backed up there too. And you can burn your files to cds. The removable drive sounds easiest and least expensive…
McMOm says
External hard drive is definately the way to go. It’s still really easy to access all your photos that way, so you don’t feel like they’re off in some far away place where you will never see them again.
Tina says
I back mine up onto an external hard drive with a huge capacity…then I store the drive in my safe.
Princess of Sarcasm says
Never get rid of any of your memory cards. You can retrieve pics even after you delete them. This happened to my father and he found a program online and got them back. I have two external hard drives. One is an Apple time machine that I LOVE because it AUTOMATICALLY backs up everything!!!! It also doubles as my wireless router. Best. Invention. Ever.
Justine says
O.M.G.!!!! I lost you!!!! I lost you! Last night while laying in bed you and Victor E. popped in my head and I realized I hadn’t read anything from you lately! Craptastic!
Justine :o )
Lourie says
I have tons of folders which are named by month and year. The pictures themselves have no name. Some of them date back to 2003. The rest before that, are on film. And who knows where they are.
Lauren says
Just get an external hard drive…no need to delete anything!
B says
I had more than 4,000 pictures on my computer, none of which were backed up, most of which haven’t been printed. They were taunting me and haunting me. I asked for an external hard drive for Christmas so I could back them up and get them out of my nightmares. The day after Christmas, before I could get the external hard drive out of the box, the computer CRASHED!!!! Take this as a lesson learned.
Justine says
Your alternate title could have been, “Hello, my name is Kat and I’m a photo ho”.
So as I was saying earlier, I lost your damn blog, but now I have it back. Of course…. if you had been visiting ME once in a while this issue could have been resolved long ago. But now you’re buried in a bazillion photos of your gorgeous kids. I can’t compete with that.
Justine :o )
Jannica says
I don’t delete any photos off my memory cards, so I have like a million memory cards. I have a bunch of photos before I started this “method” that I need to back up though… from what it looks like external HD is the way to go. I did lose about 200 photos on an old laptop…but those were of my single days, and I don’t miss those as much as I would my sons first year of life.
Crystal says
Please…please…puhleeeeeeease…back up your photos. It was always on my “to do” list, and my laptop got stolen on Christmas Eve while we were out of town, and now years of pictures of my girls are G.O.N.E. for.ev.er. Makes me sick to my stomach just thinking about it. :(
I have heard picasa is a great web tool for storing, editing, organizing photos. But if you want to leave them in folders on your PC, there is a web-based backup program called Carbonite that our company uses to back up all the files on our PCs in case they were to crash one day. We would just go to Carbonite’s website on our new, functional, computer – and download all of our saved files to the new one.
Don’t wait to save the photos…pretty pretty please.
CRISTINA says
MOZY!! MOZY !! MOZY !!!
It’s reasonably priced and they do not encode your videos like most online photo storage places. The first upload takes a long time, but the rest are automatic, shorter and faster.
THe other thing is you can use an external hard drive that your photo software points to. . .so it feels like it is on your computer but isn’t so your computer is not bogged down by allllll that data.
Good luck
jenni says
You are not alone. I actually did back up a couple years worth of pictures to cd back when my ten year old was very small. Back when cds were less reliable. And my computer crashed. . .then the cd wouldn’t open anymore. All those squeezable picture of my adorable baby were gone.
Now I have an external hard drive and upload a lot of photos to my mobileme account. Which is a good thing since last year’s file alone has over 10,000 pictures, and I have several years on there.
On my computer I use lightroom to tag and organized and develop my pictures and iphoto to save and upload the best ones. Both have handy ways to label and organize. Good Luck!
WebSavvyMom says
–>I probably close to 30,000 photos taken in the last decade. Our home computer houses them all by folder name/month year and the system is “mirrored” so if something happens to one hard drive it’s backed up on the same. Having wrote all that, I am still convinced I’m going to lose them all. I suggest a $80 external hard drive that you can copy everything over to once a month so you know you really have everything safe.
http://www.WebSavvyMom.com
WebSavvyMom says
–>I have probably close to 30,000 photos taken in the last decade. Our home computer houses them all by folder name/month year and the system is “mirrored” so if something happens to one hard drive it’s backed up on the same. Having wrote all that, I am still convinced I’m going to lose them all. I suggest a $80 external hard drive that you can copy everything over to once a month so you know you really have everything safe.
http://www.WebSavvyMom.com
Pooba says
I totally hear ya on the picture hoarding! I finally joined a SmugMug.com to back up all my pictures. I love it!
MamaB says
I use Picassa. I love it because I can easily and quickly just scroll through all my pictures (it’s set up like a contact sheet). And like everything Google does, it’s free, user friendly and has lots of features. you can tag, and star and easily upload to blogs (blogger of course sorry!), store sites (the plus here is it will keep your organization, it will name your Walgreen’s or CVS folders the same as on your computer) or web pages. It also has simply editing tools as well. Than I back everything up to an external drive and hubby than does something else fancy and tech like to it and gets them on a DVD (or 2 we may be up to 2 or 3).
We usually back up once a year but it’s been a little longer, need to get on that!
Funkidivagirl says
I am paranoid about losing everything on my computer…including my photos. I do have an external drive and remember to back it up every week or so, but I need to put all my photos on a dvd as well. What I really want to do is use a service to back up my computer…that is a goal this year.
Tesa says
We have tons of photos on our computer too. I just backed them up using Google Picasa. It was really easy. They are now on DVDs and Picasa will keep track of when the last back up was so I’m not spending all my time backing up the same thing.
Good luck it is dauting, that’s for sure!
Kimberly says
Oh she’s adorable! And don’t waste time on CDs, but an external hard drive!
Sissy says
I have 3yrs worth (3G) of pics and my disc drive doesn’t work. Freak out! So I uploaded every single one to Snapfish. At least they are there if, read:WHEN, my laptop goes to the big junk pile in the sky.
Michelle says
Oh, I’m with ya. Except I don’t back anything up. I just have all the photos saved with the generic names on my computer in monthly dated folders. I haven’t printed any pictures since 2000. And I have nothing backed up. It’s on my to do list, but it’s SOOOO far down there I can’t even see it.
Jenners says
We have tons of photos too. We buy a removable hard drive, back up the photos and keep them in a fireproof, waterproof safe. You really shouldn’t mess with this stuff … get them backed up NOW. There are also places where you can store them online safely. There may be money involved but 8 years worth of photos are worth it.
Pua says
I realize this is old, I’m still making my way to May 2010, but I will have it done before bed tonight so to save precious reading time I’m not going to read through all the comments to see if someone suggested this already. But just in case, have you considered buying an external hard drive? You can buy them at pretty much any store or order them online for cheap. And they are easy to use. My husband is an IT guy so all our stuff is backed up every couple of months, and if something happens to one of the computers before it’s backed up I cry.