Backing Up Your Digital Life Protecting Photos, Documents and Memories

Think of everything on your phone and computer: family photographs, documents, tax records, creative work, messages, contacts. For most people, a large part of their personal history is stored digitally, often in only one place.

Data is lost in many ways. Storage devices fail, as hard drives and solid-state drives have a limited lifespan and can fail without warning. Phones and laptops are lost, stolen, dropped and drowned. Accounts are hacked or closed. Files are deleted by mistake. Software crashes, updates go wrong and ransomware locks files until a payment is made. Fires and floods destroy hardware. Each of these is common, and none is warned of in advance.

The remedy is simple in principle: keep more than one copy, in more than one place. A backup is a separate copy of your data, stored independently, that you can restore if the original is lost. Because backups are invisible until they are needed, many people neglect them, and discover too late that they have nothing.

Professionals commonly follow a rule of thumb known as 3-2-1, which is easy to adapt at home.

Keep at least three copies of your data: the original and two backups. Store the copies on at least two different types of storage, for example your computer's internal drive and an external drive, or a drive and a cloud service. Keep at least one copy offsite, away from your home, such as in the cloud or at a relative's house, so that a fire, flood or burglary does not take everything.

For most households, a practical version is as follows. Your computer or phone holds the original. An external hard drive, backed up regularly, provides a second copy. A cloud backup service provides an offsite third. Together they protect against almost every kind of loss. Prioritise your most irreplaceable data, such as photographs, important documents and creative work, and be less concerned about things that can be re-downloaded, such as apps and music.

Consider the capacity you need. Add up the size of your photographs, documents and other files, and choose storage with comfortable room to grow. External drives are inexpensive, and cloud services offer free tiers that are usually small, with paid plans for more.

The best backup is one that you do not have to think about. Modern devices make automatic backups easy.

On iPhones and iPads, iCloud Backup saves your device settings, app data and photographs to the cloud, and can be switched on in settings. On Android phones, Google's backup service does a similar job for settings, apps and data, and Google Photos can store pictures. Both offer a limited amount of free storage, and you may need a paid plan for a full backup. You can also back up a phone to a computer.

On Windows computers, tools such as File History, Windows Backup and OneDrive can protect folders. On Macs, Time Machine backs up to an external drive automatically. Cloud backup services run in the background and send encrypted copies of your files to remote servers. Whichever you use, check that it is working by looking at the date of the last backup.

Do not forget less obvious things, such as email, contacts, messaging history, documents stored in apps, passwords in a password manager and photographs that exist only on a camera memory card. Copy photographs from cameras to your computer soon after taking them.

Many people believe that because their files are in the cloud, they are backed up. That is not necessarily true, and the difference is important.

Syncing keeps the same files up to date across several devices. If you change or delete a file on one device, the change is copied to all the others. This is convenient, but it also means that if you delete a file by mistake, or if ransomware encrypts your files, the damage is copied everywhere. Services such as OneDrive, Dropbox, iCloud Drive and Google Drive sync files, and many of them also offer some version history or a recycle bin for a limited period, which gives partial protection, but they are not full backups.

A backup keeps a separate, independent copy at a particular point in time, so that you can go back to it, whatever happens to the original. Versions matter: a good backup lets you restore a file as it was last week or last month, in case the problem is not discovered immediately.

Check how your cloud photo service works. If you delete a picture from your phone, find out whether it is also deleted from the cloud. Check what happens if you stop paying for storage, since some services may delete data after a period. Keep an independent copy of your most important files.

Ransomware is malicious software that encrypts your files and demands payment to unlock them. Good backups are the best protection against it.

To be safe from ransomware, keep at least one backup that is not permanently connected to your computer or network. An external drive that stays plugged in can be encrypted along with everything else, so disconnect it after backing up, or use a service that keeps previous versions that cannot be altered. Do not pay a ransom. There is no guarantee of recovery, and payment encourages further crime. Report it to the police and seek help from reputable sources. The National Cyber Security Centre publishes guidance.

Look after your storage. External drives and memory cards do not last forever, and a typical drive may last several years, so replace them periodically and keep more than one. Store drives in a cool, dry place away from magnets and strong heat. For long-term preservation of precious photographs, consider printing the best ones as prints or photo books, which will last for decades without a device.

Be mindful about file formats. Common formats such as JPEG, PDF and plain text are widely supported and likely to remain readable. Organise your files in a clear folder structure with sensible names, so that you and your family can find them later.

Eventually, every digital life passes to someone else. A little planning makes a hard time easier for those who are left.

Make a list of your important accounts and where things are stored, including email, banking, photographs, cloud storage and subscriptions, and store it somewhere safe, along with instructions on how your family can access your password manager or key accounts. Do not write passwords into your will, because a will becomes a public document after probate. Leave them in a secure place, such as a sealed envelope with a trusted person or a solicitor, or use the emergency access feature of your password manager.

Use the legacy tools that major services provide. Apple allows you to name a legacy contact who can request access to your data after your death, and Google's Inactive Account Manager lets you decide what happens to your account if you stop using it. Other services have their own procedures, though they vary and may require a death certificate. Think about what you want to be kept, shared or deleted.

Consider taking care of the photographs. Make sure that your family knows where your pictures are, and consider organising and sharing the best of them while you are alive. Tell someone you trust where your backups are kept and how to access them. This is a small effort that can be a great kindness later.