How to keep family photos, videos and voice recordings safe with three copies in two places, a yearly check and new storage every five years.
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In short
Keep three copies of the photos and recordings that matter, on two kinds of storage, with one copy away from home.
Unplug a backup drive once the copy is made, and check once a year that your copies still open.
Copy everything onto new storage about every five years.
Most family photos and recordings now live on a phone or a computer. A lost phone or a drive that stops working can take years of them in a moment, along with the only recording of a grandparent’s voice.
People who look after national collections protect them with a simple rule about copies. It works just as well at home.
Copy two goes on an external hard drive or a USB stick that you keep at home.
Copy three lives somewhere else, such as an online storage account or a drive kept at a relative’s house.
Why two places
The Library of Congress gives the reason plainly. If disaster strikes one location, the copies in the other place should be safe. A house fire or a flood can take everything under one roof at once, including the drive sitting next to the computer.
Start with what matters most
You don’t need to save every blurry photo. The Library of Congress suggests first deciding which photos matter most, then making at least two copies of those, and more copies are better.
Recordings of voices and family videos deserve a place near the top. Keep the original file and copy it the same day you record it, as set out in gathering a parent’s stories.
Unplug the home copy
The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre suggests disconnecting a backup drive once the copy is made. Harmful software, such as ransomware, can spread to a drive that’s still plugged in, and then the backup is lost too. It also suggests setting a calendar reminder to make the next copy.
Check that it opens
The Library of Congress suggests checking your photos at least once a year to make sure you can still read them. The National Cyber Security Centre adds that it’s worth checking a backup holds everything important, such as the photos you took most recently.
Open a few files from each copy, some old and some new. Pick a date you’ll remember for this, like a family birthday.
New storage every five years
Hard drives and memory cards wear out over time. The Library of Congress suggests making new copies on new storage every five years, or sooner when needed. Copy everything across and check that it opens before you put the old drive away.
Files that open years from now
For recordings, the Library of Congress suggests saving them in an open file format, a common format that many programs can read. Plain file names help too. The US National Archives suggests file names without spaces, with hyphens or underscores instead, such as 1987-06-nana-birthday.jpg.
Write down where each copy lives on your family memory index, so the family can find them. Keep passwords off that page.
Your yearly check
Copy new photos and recordings to the home drive, then unplug it.
Check the copy away from home has this year’s photos.
Open a few old and new files from each copy.
If a drive is about five years old, copy everything onto a new one.
Update your family memory index with where each copy lives.
