Yep. That’s even happened to me. And it hurt.
It was April of 2013. And yes, it’s a day I’ll never forget.
It was just days after I had to say goodbye to my dog soulmate. Oscar.
Oscar was the Weimaraner I had been dreaming about since I met William Wegman when I was in photo school. Do you remember him? He created those funny pictures of dogs in clothing with human hands? He is actually an icon in the photo world (and not just for dressing up dogs!). Although it was his dogs that won my heart and I vowed I would have a dog like that someday.
A few years later that dream came true and my Oscar joined our family. And he was 10X more amazing than I had dreamed. He was MY dog…. Followed me everywhere and did everything with me. It was a great 11 years we had together before his health failed him. He fought a good fight, but after months of effort (and weeks of hospitalization) we had to say goodbye to my special friend.
As with any loss, it’s the photographs we turn to for comfort. And I had taken hundreds of photographs in those last months…. All safely stored in my iPhone 4… Or so I thought.
I did back up my pictures from time to time, but it wasn’t everyday (like I do now) and at that time it had been months. Those photographs only lived in that phone.
Days after Oscars passing, I lost my phone. I think it was left on top of my car and I drove away…. It was never seen again. All of those last months with Oscar were gone. All gone.
10 years later I still know exactly when that happened. I still feel a sadness about the loss of those photographs. That was a difficult experience, but I’m happily on a mission now to make sure that nobody else needs to feel that pain.
If you are that person who still has your photographs living solely on your phone, here is what you need to do TODAY to avoid those pictures having the same fate as my own.
- download an app to back up your pictures. I suggest Amazon Photos. It’s free if you have Amazon Prime. You do have to pay for video storage, but it is currently the most affordable option to back up pictures. Once set up Amazon Photos will back up your pictures every night for you.
- transfer those same pictures to a desktop external hard drive. It’s best you always have photos in at least two places. So until they are both in a cloud, like Amazon Photos AND on a hard drive in your home, they can’t be safely deleted off of your phone.
- Once a month transfer your months images to your external hard drive. Make it a routine. Once you start it’s actually a quick and simple process.
That’s it. It’s that simple to get those pictures safely backed up! So I implore you to start TODAY. Get those photographs backed up and comment below if you have methods you use to stay photo organized!