Best ways to backup photos in 2021

Digital photography has many advantages over traditional film photography, but security isn't one of them.

Digital images, unlike prints or negatives, can be lost forever in a catastrophic hard drive failure or even accidentally deleted with a click of the mouse. Even if you use backup software, there is always the possibility that it will fail.

Here are a few things you can do to ensure that those digital memories don't vanish before their eyes.

1. Make use of recordable media

Recordable media such as SD cards, CDs, and DVDs can all be useful for backing up your photos, but if you're not careful, you could end up with a large collection that's difficult to organise.

2. Upload photos to the cloud

If you're not very good at keeping a good backup of digital photos, syncing them to the cloud is a great way to "set it and forget it." There are an infinite number of services available through Mac desktop clients, and many of them provide generous amounts of free or low-cost storage as well.

Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, and other popular cloud storage options include many that offer mobile apps that can be configured to automatically back up the Camera Roll of iOS and Android devices.

3. Make use of several software libraries

A good defence is the best offence against any potential disaster, and while it's recommended to use multiple hardware options to backup and store your photos, there are also various software options you can use.

Apple used to provide Aperture to assist with photo organisation, but there are alternatives, such as iPhoto Library Manager, and the same trick works in iPhoto as well.

The idea is simple: move older, unused, and duplicate images to a separate library on an external drive, preferably one that isn't used on a regular basis.

4.Print them out (just in case)

Unless you enjoy scrapbooking or were raised in the Fotomat generation (kids, ask your parents), printing thousands of digital photos may appear to be a waste of money, time, and trees. Because we're so enamoured with paperless photos these days, there may come a time when having a closet full of prints is preferable or even necessary. At the very least, they're a good hard copy that can be scanned back into the computer if the worst-case scenario occurs and your digital memories are lost.