A Few Tips To Backup Your Valuable Photos

Read time 7 minutes

Ever felt the need of having a backup of the most precious images stored on your system? Because, once the hard disk suffers a crash, its information cannot be retrieved easily unless you have a backup stored somewhere. There could be several reasons for photo loss, which includes manual errors and deletions, intentional or unintentional.

On the contrary, the users who practice regular backups are pretty ensured that data is going to be back anyway.

Backups are anytime saviors in every field. So, taking backups for such system data periodically is a good practice after which the users could be tension-free about the crucial data on their systems.

Types of Backup

Before performing the backup, it would be good to know the type of backups which user can perform. Backups can be taken in two ways, either on hardware or on cloud (online).

In the hardware backup, users can save the data copy to the system hard drive or external devices like hard disk, pen-drive, disks, etc. The data may get lost if the backup is taken on the same system. While it can be used again if stored on some external devices or remote system.

In online backup, the data is more secure and can be accessed anytime with just the login credentials along with the internet facility.

For different versions of Windows Operating Systems, there are different backup techniques which we can use in order to have a backup for the system data.

Note: It is recommended to take an offsite backup (other than on your PC) more than onsite backup so that any damage to the system would not affect the backup alongside.

Microsoft provides its users some in-built features, (different for different Windows versions) to take a backup copy of the data stored on the system. Let us understand these techniques to get an idea of how to perform the backup manually.

For Windows 7

Backup your photos in Windows 7 system by executing the given steps:

1. On your computer Start menu, search for Backup keyword in the search box. Select Backup and Restore to open it.
2. It will open the Backup or restore your files page on the system. Here, click Set up backup option to start the backup process.
3. Select the destination to save your back up data. (external storage media devices are preferred).
4. Next, you will have two options to choose from, either Let Windows choose or Let me choose. Select Let Windows choose to let the system options decide which data to be saved and if you want to select the data yourself, select Let me choose and click Next.
5. Select the images which you want to back up from the system and click Next. Then, run backup.
6. The backup process will start and complete after some minutes.

For Windows 8/8.1

It uses the File History feature to backup file copies from the system and saves it to the desired external drive or other network location. Let us know how to perform a backup with this option.

1. Run your PC as an administrator and go to Settings by searching it in the search box.
2. Here, click Update and recovery option. Then click File History option to open it.
3. Connect the external drive and turn ON the File History option under Save copies of your file automatically to copy the system data to that drive.
4. Click Backup Now. The backup process will start immediately.

It includes the manual process of selecting and copying images from the system to the connected external drives like pen drive, CD drives, etc., or to a remote system network. But, if the data is in large quantity, then this method could be difficult for the users.

Online Backup

The backup could be safer and more accessible if taken to the cloud. The safety of data is a prime concern for the users. If stored online, there will be no risk of loss or deletion of data. Moreover, it could be accessed on any system just by logging to the cloud account. The online platforms which can be used for saving are Google Drive and OneDrive.

Google Drive for Backup

With the latest updates, users have new utility Backup n sync provided by Google Drive, which users can easily download online for free. Let us know the process for backup with this utility.

1. Once installed, launch the application and sign up with your Google account credentials.
2. Next, it will show the folders to choose for backup, or you can select any folder from the system by clicking on CHOOSE FOLDER option. Change the backup options by clicking Change on the rightmost pane.
3. Now, select the option Backup photos and videos and select the checkboxes as per your requirement. Under the Advanced Settings option, you can select the image extensions which you want to exclude during the backup process. Enter the extension and click Add to add it as a filter. Then click OK.
4. You can choose desired option under Photos and video upload size, select the checkbox saying Upload photos and videos to Google Photos and click Next.
5. Next, you can click on Change to change the default saving location for the selected data backup from the system. Finally, click on START.
6. The backup of photos from the system will get started immediately. Wait for a few minutes for the backup to complete.

OneDrive for Backup

You can easily synchronize the system data automatically to the OneDrive. The automatic synchronization generates a backup copy of the system folders – Desktop, Documents, and Pictures to the safe cloud (OneDrive) location, which can be accessed when system data is unavailable due to any reason. Users can back up about 5GB data free using this OneDrive application. Consider these steps while taking the backup.

1. Select the OneDrive icon available on your system within the applications page. Then click More option and then select Settings. Now, follow Backup>Manage Backup.
2. The Back up your folders page will get opened. Here, select the folders from which you want to back up your data. Click on the Start backup button.
3. You can view the backup progress. The backup will get completed in some time as per the size of the files.
   Once the backup gets completed, the user can access selected folders data including pictures using OneDrive

Users can follow any of these tips or techniques or methods to take a backup of their important pictures on the system. If you have already lost your crucial photos from the system, then, we suggest you a complete solution to recover lost or deleted photos. It is a third-party solution namely Kernel Photo Recovery which can recover permanently lost images or photos from your PC, memory card, camera, USB, etc. It is strongly programmed software which can recover photos easily, preview them and let the users decide which images need to be saved. It comes in a free trial version to let users get friendly with the features of the tool. Find it on the software website for free download.