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I was walking in to the Verizon store several weeks ago to exchange my phone. My old phone kept losing signal, I looked at getting some cell booster technology however I decided to just buy a new phone instead. My new phone had arrived in the mail, I took the case off the old phone, put it on the new phone and had the old phone in my hand. As I stepped up the curb to go in the door to the store, that slippery little bugger shot right out of my hand and landed face down on the sidewalk (about 2 feet from the door).

I flipped it over, saw the shattered screen and uttered some not-so-nice words for all the parking lot people to hear (I’m sorry for what I said when I was super angry). I have amazing phone cases, drop my phone at least 10 times a day, and I have never once shattered a screen. Until now.

Obviously a phone will still work with a shattered screen, but I share this story to point out an already obvious fact of the million and one ways to ruin our phones. Sometimes we get lucky and they’ll still work. Sometimes we drop them in the lake or pool, bust them up in a recliner (true story–totally happened–see photo below), forget about them in our pants pocket and they fall in the toilet (I know you people are out there), run over them with the car, lose them on a rollercoaster (seen this first hand), drop them off a ledge, get them stolen or lose them, and on and on and on. Luckily I was still able to sell cell phone so I made a bit of money back, but it was still really annoying.

I know most people are taking all their photos with their phones these days. So my question–if your phone suddenly stopped working today (for whatever stupid reason), would you lose all your photos you have on there?

If your answer is “YES”, keep reading. This is for you. If you answer is “NO”, are you sure? I don’t say that to be snarky–I just mean, are you really sure your photos are safe?

My first piece of advice is to make it a habit to get the photos OFF your phone and on your computer on a regular basis (and especially after a big event or vacation). Plug those babies in and get the photos on to the computer (and of course back them up from there). I keep a lot of the photos on my phone even after I do this, but my computer is the main hub for all my photos.

In the meantime, it’s good to have a backup solution to keep the photos on your phone safe until you can get them on your computer. If you have a lot of storage on your phone, my guess is you have thousands and thousands of photos on there. Of big events and every day moments. Things you obviously wanted to remember and preserve when you took the photo.

The good news–There are 3 easy ways to back up the photos on your phone so when you can’t access the photos from your phone, they’re still safe.

FIRST: GOOGLE PHOTOS.

Google’s claim is “Free storage and automatic organization for all your memories”. It’s true, it’s free. Just keep in mind that google’s main purpose is data-mining and their user agreement is a little loose, but if you’re comfortable with that (which I personally am), you don’t have to pay any money for this service.

I only use Google photos for my phone (I have a different backup system for the photos on my computer and external hard-drives). My rule for back-up is at least 2 different places, and 2 different locations. So Google photos is one of my 2 for my phone (the other is iCloud which will get to in a minute). But you can use Google photos for the photos on your computer as well. We’re not getting in to that here.

To use google photos, download the app to your phone and walk through the steps. It’s very user-friendly and easy to setup. It works on Android or iPhones.

A few things to keep in mind. It can take quite a while to initially get all the photos backed up. It starts with photos, then it does the videos.

When I initially did this, it had several glitches and started over a few times so just make sure when it says it’s all done, that all the photos and videos were actually backed up (just a quick scroll through to see that the photos are on there).

When you delete a photo from your phone, it doesn’t delete from Google Photos. They’ll only delete from Google Photos if you delete them from there, not if you delete them from your phone.

The unlimited free account of storage will reduce the file size on your photos only if they are bigger than 16MP. Photos on your phone aren’t bigger than that so the photo quality won’t be compromised at all.

To FIND the photos once you’ve uploaded them, you can see them through the Google Photos app on your phone, OR you can go to photos.google.com and login there to see all of the photos that uploaded to the Google cloud. The screen will look like this:

Google Photos has some pretty incredible search features (not surprising–that’s what Google specializes in) and it also uses your photos to create animations and short movies like this (you don’t do anything–it just takes photos and starts creating things you can watch and save):

This was just a random one I saved real quick of a trip we recently took to California. We went on a whale/dolphin boat excursion and it was SO so cool. Something we’ll never forget. Google Photos just grabbed a few photos from that day and made this little movie. My kids have loved watching a lot of these creations with no effort on my part. Winning.

If you want a more in depth look at how Google Photos works, how to get it set up (it really is super user friendly), and some of the extensive search features and perks of Google Photos, check out this FREE resource from Modern Photo Solutions.

SECOND: iCLOUD

iCloud is another cloud based service (obvious from the name) that will backup the photos on your phone. iPhone users get 5GB free (which will store like 7 photos–okay maybe a little more but 5GB isn’t going to do much), 50GB for $.99 a month, 200 GB for $2.99 a month, or 1 TB for $9.99 a month.

If you’re just using iCloud for your phone (which is all we’re talking about here), the storage amount you get will be dependent on how much storage your phone has. My phone has 128GB of storage so I have the 200GB plan (because 50GB won’t be enough). I could just use the 50GB plan if I didn’t want to keep as many photos on my phone, but I do–hence the reason for the bigger phone.

Yes, it costs. But I think $3 a month is totally worth the peace-of-mind that comes with knowing all my photos are safe until I get them on my computer.

To check your iCloud storage or to buy more, go to Settings, scroll down to iCloud, then choose “Storage”. You can choose “manage storage” to see where your storage space is going (with all your apps on your phone including Photos) and how much storage your photos are using. Then you can choose “Change storage plan” to change your iCloud storage amount to fit however much you need.

To start your photos backing up to iCloud, go to “Settings”, then “iCloud” and find “Photos” and make sure it’s switched to “On”. This will start the backup of your photos to iCloud.

To FIND your photos once they’ve loaded to the cloud, go to iCloud.com and log in to your iCloud account (your apple account). There you can see all the things that are uploading to your cloud account (contacts, calendar, notes, etc). If you click on the “Photos” icon, you will see all the photos that have uploaded to iCloud. The screen will looks like this:

This will also take some time if you have a bunch of photos on your phone.

The intent of iCloud is to sync ALL your photos from ALL devices so you can access them anywhere (computer, phone, iPad, etc.). I don’t love the workflow of that so I just use it for my phone (and phone backup is all we’re covering here).

One thing to remember–and this is important–iCloud works kind of like e-mail (syncing all devices together). So if you delete a photo on your phone it will delete from iCloud just like if you read e-mail on your phone and delete the e-mail, you no longer have that e-mail in your account on a computer or another device.

The only time that won’t happen is if you’re using the “save storage” feature of iCloud and when you take a photo, it automatically goes to iCloud and doesn’t store on your phone at all. But that can be really confusing for people. So for the sake of this post which is merely to get the photos on our phone backed up and safe, just remember that when you delete from your phone, it is also deleting from iCloud.

THIRD: DROPBOX

I only recommend Dropbox if you are already paying for the additional storage in Dropbox and have it anyway. Otherwise this would be a more expensive option and not necessary if you use the other two features. I love Dropbox and use it all the time to access all my photos from other computers and devices. This is another way to back up the photos on your phone.

If you already have Dropbox and want to use it to backup your phone photos, download the Dropbox app to your phone.

If you have an iPhone follow these steps:

Nearly six years ago, my brother stumbled on to a busy road while he was “black out” drunk.  A car traveling around 40 mph hit him head on.

My phone rang late that night.  It was my sister telling me about the accident.  My brother had been life-flighted.  She was on her way to the hospital.

My first response:  “Well sh*t.  Do I pray for him to live or to die?”

My second response:  “Call me when you get there if I need to come.”  This wasn’t our first “Burk is in the hospital” call or even his first time on life-flight.

From the outside it doesn’t make sense for me to not immediately jump in the car and head to be with him.  But that’s the world of addiction.  Near death too many times to count.  Him forgetting it ever happened and continuing to do the same things that consistently and repeatedly landed him in the back of an ambulance, in an ER, or several times in the ICU.

There’s this word thrown around all.the.time when referencing the world of addiction.

Enable.

The definition:  to give someone the authority or means to do something.

When it’s tossed around in the world of addiction someone will say “You’re enabling them” or “You can’t enable them” and on and on.  The essence–if you help them, in any way, you’re helping them sustain their addiction.  You’re allowing them the means to continue drinking or continue using drugs or continue whatever addiction it is they have.

I remember the first time I heard Dr. Phil lecture someone about being an enabler and I wanted to throat punch him.  My question for Dr. Phil and anyone else who tosses that word around:

If your son (brother, daughter, sister, wife, dad, mom) showed up on your doorstep in a hospital gown, identifying name bracelets still on, traction blue socks from the hospital and no shoes, and not another possession to their name because someone stole their one remaining backpack of worldly goods while they were passed out, what would you do?

Would you turn them away?  Would you close the door on them?  Would you refuse to answer at all?  Would you pretend to not be home?  Would you cry?  Would you yell?  Would you be numb–to tired and weary to care in that moment? Would your heart ache or would you be filled with anger?

What would you do?

It’s a sincere question.

And the truth is, there’s no right answer.

When you’re in the thick of the addiction world, it often feels like there’s no right answer.  You’re damned if you do.  You’re damned if you don’t.

Over the years and years (and years) of dealing with my brothers addiction we ran the gamut of “solutions”.  Volunteer rehab, forced rehab, pineapple picking in Hawaii, hard labor fishing crew in Alaska, rehab in the mountains, rehab in the city, jail, compassion, anger, tough-love, coercion, good-cop, bad-cop, guilt, limited contact, open contact.

We.tried.it.all.

And guess what–nothing worked.  Nothing.  He never “got better”.  He never stopped (for any significant period of time).

He just got worse.

You know another phrase that makes me cringe–“they have to hit rock bottom before they get better.”

You know what I think my brothers rock bottom is?  Death.  Truly.  I think he would die before hitting rock bottom and “recovering”.  So when someone says “You can’t enable him”, are my choices help him or let him die?  Or maybe somewhere in between?  Help enough to keep him alive but only that?  If I truly believe death is his rock bottom, then what?

We were in the middle of a “tough love” phase when my brother was hit by the car.  Our family went through varying degrees of willingness and ability to “help” (in quotations because was it helping or hurting–no one can even answer that).

Some addicts disappear and go do their thing.  That was not our case.  You know the song “the cat came back, we thought he was a goner.  But the cat came back; it just couldn’t stay away.”  That was my brother.  He stayed close.  He always came back.  He continued showing up on our doorstep, calling our phone up to 50 times a day, sleeping in our yards.  He knew we’d never be able to completely cut him loose and forget about him.

He’s family.  And family takes care of each other.  But that’s the question.  If we keep rescuing and aiding, is it actually helping?

My brother showed up at my parents house the day he was hit by the car.  He was drunk.  And there were boundaries we were trying to keep (how easily those boundaries often blurred and became muddy–unclear).  No using at their house.  You can’t come in if you’re drunk or using.

So we took him to a nearby area with a sleeping bag so he could sleep it off.  Sounds awful, right?  Dumping my brother in a field so he could sleep off his drunken stupor.  We could have let him in.  We could have made sure he was safe.  But there were “rules”.  We can’t enable.  That’s what the experts say. That’s often what we believed.  And sometimes I still believe.  Addiction is a whole lot of gray and not a lot of black and white.

Late that night, he got up.  He certainly had no idea where he was.  He walked.  And he ended up on the side of a busy road.  And then he walked IN to the road.  The car didn’t even have a chance to hit their brakes.

Somehow he lived (he’s got more lives than a cat).  One shattered leg, the other broken.  A broken shoulder, bruises everywhere, swollen abdomen (it was huge) and a bleed in his brain–traumatic brain injury.  No one expected him to live.  People don’t survive things like that.  But he did.

The next few months were a living hell.  For him.  For my parents.  For all of us.

What if we hadn’t dropped him in that gully?  What if we had let him in even though he was clearly violating the rules?  How would that have changed things?

We were trying not to enable.  That backfired big time.  Sometimes death isn’t always worst-case-scenario.

But had we let him in, who knows what would have happened the next day?  We knew we couldn’t keep doing what we were doing and watching him destroy himself.  His life was in shambles.  And he was making my parents life a living hell.

The point–there are no right or wrong answers.  Is it enabling or is it just trying to keep them alive while we feverishly cling to hope?  Hope for healing.  Hope for life.

For some, tough-love is the way.  For some, compassion.  For some, turning them away is the only solution.  For some, letting them in is the only solution.

No right.  No wrong.  Just.plain.HARD.  Either way.  No easy decisions.  And very rarely decisions that are confirmed as good ones or right ones.  Always doubting.  Always wondering.  Always second-guessing nearly every single decision.

I have no answers, but I have all the compassion in the world.

And if I decide to let my brother in when he shows up on my doorstep in a hospital gown and someone calls me an enabler, so be it.  He’s my brother.  And though I didn’t let him sleep at the house (I’ve got kids and using drugs around my kids is not a decision I ever question), I fed him, I found him clothes, I rounded up a new backpack, I found shoes and then I drove him to the homeless shelter.  Because there was no hand-book to handle that situation.  There was no right.  There was no wrong.

If you’ve never had to deal with addiction with a loved one, consider yourself incredibly lucky and withhold judgment.  If you’re an addict, be kind to yourself. If you love an addict, do the best you know how and hang in there.  Although it often seems bleak, there is always hope.  Always.

Here’s a question I get asked a lot–What online backup company should I use?

We’re going to get to that in just a second. But first, if you haven’t read the post “7 mistakes you’re making managing your photos (and how to fix them)” I highly recommend you go read that first!

 

{Stick with this post to the end and you can get a free month of backup service for your computer}

On to the question. The reason this gets tricky is because every single persons situation is unique. We all manage our photos a little differently just like we all clean our house a little differently or have different systems for doing laundry or meal plan (or don’t meal plan–why is that so hard?) and cook dinner differently.

But. There are some questions we can ask ourselves and a list of things to look for to help us make the decision of what online company to choose to backup our computers and photos. A pretty important decision if you ask me. My memory is so bad that if I lost all my pictures, it’s basically like I never existed. I remember nothing. Which is why taking photos and printing photos are so so so important to me.

My first question: If you got on your computer one day and realized ALL your photos were missing, how much would you pay to get them back?

I’m just guessing your answer is “a lot”. You’d probably pay a LOT of money to get all those photos back. Now keep this in mind when deciding what online backup system works for you. Instead of having to pay a lot of money to try and retrieve lost photos (I payed over $1000 once to recover photos from an external hard drive I didn’t have properly backed up), paying a small monthly fee won’t seem so bad.
If you’re thinking the same, that a small price each month to store and backup your vital files or photos seems like a good idea you should look into services that companies like hostiserver.com provides.

Also keep in mind that even if we’re willing to pay a lot of money to try and recover photos, those photos won’t always be recoverable. I think we sometimes have a false sense of security hearing the stories of people whose photos were recovered. For each of those, there’s a story of someone who lost years and years of photos and memories. It’s far better to get them backed up in a reliable way than hope that some smart tech person can recover them for us for a pretty hefty fee.

Here are some things to look for when deciding what online company to use:

• How much is the monthly fee
• Is it unlimited
• Is there a file size limit
• Are images compressed at all (quality reduced)
• Can you also back up external hard drives or just main computer hard drive
• How is their customer service
• What’s their reputation for recovering lost data

I did a lot of research and reading and comparing and debating (and more debating and more research and more comparing) when I was trying to decide what company to go with and it can be overwhelming to say the least. I know a lot of people get so overwhelmed they end up not choosing anything. Please, please, please don’t do this.

For me, I wanted something affordable, unlimited, no compression on my photos (you never know when I may need to print one of those babies billboard size), no file size limit, and external hard drives had to be included (I have several external hard drives I need backed up as well).

I also wanted somewhere that I knew someone who had actually used the system to recover something. It’s one thing for a company to say they’re properly backing up your computer. The proof comes when you actually have to utilize it and recover something.

There are several really good companies that would meet all these requirements. In the end, I chose Backblaze (I’ll tell you exactly why below). I have several photographer friends who were already using Backblaze and two of them had used the recovery program to retrieve lost files. That was important to me. Knowing they’d actually recover the data should it be lost (my luck of hard drive failure is ridiculous).

Backblaze features include:

• $5 a month (so so so worth it)
• unlimited file storage
• no compression of your data (quality not compromised)
• includes any hard drives you want backed up (note you have to plug them in at least every 30 days and go on the system to say you want them included in the backup–they can help you figure this out)
• great customer service
• NO cost for restoring data (I’ll explain this below)

I’ve been using Backblaze for a few years now and during that time I had my iMac hard drive crash. At the time I wasn’t using Time Machine (first preference now for data retrieval of the main hard drive) so I used Backblaze to recover ALL the data.

A few months ago my main external drive (the one with ALL my photos) also crashed. I had most of the photos on Dropbox, but a few files weren’t so again I used Backblaze to restore ALL the lost data from that 3 terabyte external hard drive.

To recover photos, you can do them file-by-file and download a zip file from Backblaze. Or, if it’s a big recovery, you pay $189 for them to send you an external drive with all of the data on it. You can keep that drive OR you can put the information on your own external drive, mail the Backblaze drive back within 30 days and they’ll give you a full refund. So data recovery is essentially completely free.

Side note. Sometimes people complain about having to pay for backup storage. Are there free services out there? Yes. But. Free is never free. Keep in mind that if you aren’t paying for something, the saying goes–you’re the product not the customer. You get what you pay for. And paying for backup storage is worth it, especially at $5 a month.

 

Now, I don’t recommend ONLY relying on an online Backup company to keep your photos safe. I have a checklist of the process I recommend (which you can access on this post). But. This is where I would start RIGHT NOW. Your photos don’t need to be organized. You don’t have to DO anything. You just sign up for the backup company, it starts automatically backing up your computer (which can take several weeks), and then continues to backup your computer without you ever having to do anything again. You don’t have to remember to do anything or do anything manually. It just does it all for you.

Get this in place and you can definitely relieve some of the worry about losing all your photos.

If you use this referral link, you can get a free month of service. Anyone can sign up for a free trial period. Then, if you decide to buy (have to use this link to sign up in the first place), you can get 1 free month.

If you choose not to use Backblaze, totally fine too. There are plenty of good companies out there to choose from. Just choose one of them. Today. Trust me on this one.