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I used to seriously stress out worrying about the huge amount of family photos I have saved in cloud storage and what it would mean to lose them. I've got a loc

I used to seriously stress out worrying about the huge amount of family photos I have saved in cloud storage and what it would mean to lose them. I've got a local backup as well of course. Even that has to be upgraded every so often to make sure the hardware will continue to run reliably. A few years ago my (very non-technical) mother asked me to make and send her a photo album of recent pictures. My wife and I had so much fun doing it that we kept doing it. Choosing the best pictures, arranging them and making nice layouts and titles itself is a fun walk down memory lane. Now we have a shelf with about a dozen volumes of memories and we found we are far more likely to look at these than we ever were with photos in cloud storage. I like to think that if I lost all the digital copies, I would still be happy with what I have in these bound albums. I highly recommend this to everyone.

AdamN 4y ago
+100. The best and really only useful copy of your digital photo library is a curated set of prints, ideally as part of a book or a calendar.
- yaseer 4y ago
  +101. My wife and I now have an annual tradition of making physical albums of memories from the past year. Making the album in January is not just fun - it makes you mindful of fond memories at a time when you're likely to think "Geez, another year has passed so quickly". My only regret is realising I should have started the habit much earlier.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- ghaff 4y ago
  I've made photo books but I really try to decrease the flow of paper and other physical things into my house. I'm behind at the moment but I heavily curate/edit and upload to Flickr which also lets me access photos when I'm not at home.
  - memoryoak 4y ago
    [flagged]
ericcholis 4y ago
I have PhotoSync (https://www.photosync-app.com/home.html https://www.photosync-app.com/home.html) set up to automatically send all my iCloud photos to my home NAS which automatically backs up to Backblaze. I can also specify other destinations for PhotoSync and the NAS backup.
- memoryoak 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - memoryoak 4y ago
    MemoryOak is the photos/memories network that everyone deserves. MO is not addictive. It doesn't sell your data. There's no ads. MO saves photos in their original quality for free.
- ElCapitanMarkla 4y ago
  Been PhotoSync for about 10 years now, it works great
deltarholamda 4y ago
This is definitely the way. This is also the best way to cement memories with your kids as well, and they love the process. Professional photographers take a thousand photos, but they only use one. Quality, not quantity.
kylehotchkiss 4y ago
Rough strategy: 1) use iCloud Photos 2) find a Mac with a very large system drive (1tb or above) 3) open the photos app on mac and ensure settings is configured to “download originals” not “save space” 4) make sure the computer is online on a regular basis. You should see ~/Pictures/Photos.app becoming massive over time. 5) setup Time Machine for that computer 6) success! You have a second copy of your photos library on Time Machine now. 7) Use Arq.app to backup your Time Machine drive to AWS glacier. Nice! Now you have 3 copies of your library. An alternative path is making sure you have both a giant iPhone storage and giant Mac storage. Make sure photos on phone is set to “download originals”. Manually backup your iPhone to Mac monthly. These backups include photos library. I recommend encrypting your backup and keeping a key in safe and 1Password. Continue with Time Machine and Arq.
- memoryoak 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - memoryoak 4y ago
    MO is not addictive. It doesn't sell your data. There's no ads. MO saves photos in their original quality for free.
- Alifatisk 4y ago
  Is this the correct url? arqbackup.com
  - kylehotchkiss 4y ago
    Yup! that's the one.
- coolspot 4y ago
  You don’t need large system drive, just any drive connected (like USB) or even on the network. Hold Alt (Option) when starting the Photo app to invoke a dialog where you can select custom photo library location. You can have multiple photo libraries in different locations and switch between them during Photo app start. https://support.apple.com/guide/photos/create-additional-libraries-pht6d60b524/mac https://support.apple.com/guide/photos/create-additional-lib...
FireBy2024 4y ago
We do the same. What's a good alternative for videos?
- getoffmyyawn 4y ago
  I've been looking into authoring blu rays. Seems to be several promising apps but I haven't tried any yet.

AdamN 4y ago

+100. The best and really only useful copy of your digital photo library is a curated set of prints, ideally as part of a book or a calendar.

yaseer 4y ago
+101. My wife and I now have an annual tradition of making physical albums of memories from the past year. Making the album in January is not just fun - it makes you mindful of fond memories at a time when you're likely to think "Geez, another year has passed so quickly". My only regret is realising I should have started the habit much earlier.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
ghaff 4y ago
I've made photo books but I really try to decrease the flow of paper and other physical things into my house. I'm behind at the moment but I heavily curate/edit and upload to Flickr which also lets me access photos when I'm not at home.
- memoryoak 4y ago
  [flagged]

ericcholis 4y ago

I have PhotoSync (https://www.photosync-app.com/home.html https://www.photosync-app.com/home.html) set up to automatically send all my iCloud photos to my home NAS which automatically backs up to Backblaze. I can also specify other destinations for PhotoSync and the NAS backup.

memoryoak 4y ago
[flagged]
- memoryoak 4y ago
  MemoryOak is the photos/memories network that everyone deserves. MO is not addictive. It doesn't sell your data. There's no ads. MO saves photos in their original quality for free.
ElCapitanMarkla 4y ago
Been PhotoSync for about 10 years now, it works great

deltarholamda 4y ago

This is definitely the way. This is also the best way to cement memories with your kids as well, and they love the process. Professional photographers take a thousand photos, but they only use one. Quality, not quantity.

kylehotchkiss 4y ago

Rough strategy: 1) use iCloud Photos 2) find a Mac with a very large system drive (1tb or above) 3) open the photos app on mac and ensure settings is configured to “download originals” not “save space” 4) make sure the computer is online on a regular basis. You should see ~/Pictures/Photos.app becoming massive over time. 5) setup Time Machine for that computer 6) success! You have a second copy of your photos library on Time Machine now. 7) Use Arq.app to backup your Time Machine drive to AWS glacier. Nice! Now you have 3 copies of your library. An alternative path is making sure you have both a giant iPhone storage and giant Mac storage. Make sure photos on phone is set to “download originals”. Manually backup your iPhone to Mac monthly. These backups include photos library. I recommend encrypting your backup and keeping a key in safe and 1Password. Continue with Time Machine and Arq.

memoryoak 4y ago
[flagged]
- memoryoak 4y ago
  MO is not addictive. It doesn't sell your data. There's no ads. MO saves photos in their original quality for free.
Alifatisk 4y ago
Is this the correct url? arqbackup.com
- kylehotchkiss 4y ago
  Yup! that's the one.
coolspot 4y ago
You don’t need large system drive, just any drive connected (like USB) or even on the network. Hold Alt (Option) when starting the Photo app to invoke a dialog where you can select custom photo library location. You can have multiple photo libraries in different locations and switch between them during Photo app start. https://support.apple.com/guide/photos/create-additional-libraries-pht6d60b524/mac https://support.apple.com/guide/photos/create-additional-lib...

FireBy2024 4y ago

We do the same. What's a good alternative for videos?

getoffmyyawn 4y ago
I've been looking into authoring blu rays. Seems to be several promising apps but I haven't tried any yet.