Deadlines make us pay attention, right? They definitely should when it comes to the possibility of lost photos! Here are three things to know about how to make sure you don’t lose your photos.

Lost Photos – How to Make Sure You Don’t Lose Photos

1. Avoid Lost Photos at Shutterfly Share Sites

If you have ever used Shutterfly, you might have been ignoring recent emails about them permanently shutting down their Share Sites. This may not affect you at all. Share sites are very specific types of photo storage that NOT everyone uses. But if it does affect you, you only have another couple of days to take action! Share Sites have been used by schools, camps, sports, and other groups. If you thought your kid’s summer camp pictures would be there forever for you to download, NOW is the time to harvest the handful of pictures for your personal collection. March 27, 2023 you will lose access to ALL Shutterfly Share Sites and the photos they contain, whether you were the account owner or user. This content will be deleted.

Learn what to do on the Shutterfly Share page.

If this does affect you, we have a few appointments available this weekend to help you protect your photos. Please contact us to schedule a 1-hour appointment so we can help you beat the deadline.

2. Avoid Lost Photos at Shutterfly.com

Separately, Shutterfly has recently announced that you must purchase something every 18 months in order to keep your account active or risk having your photos deleted. That’s reasonable, but is a change from past policies. Again, this may not affect you at all if you are confident that you have originals of all your photos. But if you made the mistake of putting all of your photos up on Shutterfly back in the day, you can see now that you are putting them at risk. Let us help you download the originals from Shutterfly and store them on YOUR computer (and back them up properly) so you’ll always have them in the future.

3. Avoid Lost Photos at iCloud.com

True story, recently I received this notice in my email…and almost ignored it! I know you’d never do anything like that, but it happens. 😉

My iCloud wasn’t really full. My credit card expired, and Apple needed me to update credit card info to continue providing service. In the meantime, they downgraded me to the free 5 GB, which wasn’t nearly enough to hold everything I had stored.

That email above kind of looks like spam, doesn’t it? You would be forgiven if you ignored it. But if you keep ignoring it, your original-sized photos on the iCloud could be deleted for good.

If you regularly use Apple Time Machine on a properly-sized Mac, then you always have an original set of your photos. We work with our clients to make sure they have all this set up, or a similar setup on your PC. If you aren’t sure what you have or where it’s backed up, don’t wait for bad news to call us.  We absolutely LOVE helping you love your photos again. We don’t want to cry with you if your digital photos have already been lost.

How to Make Sure You Don’t Lose Photos

These are just a few of the ways you might end up with lost photos. Digital photos are really great to share and turn into books and other projects, but they do need a little attention, and they definitely need to be backed up properly for long-term protection again loss.

The good news? If you are a DIY-er, just click the links above to take the necessary steps yourself. You don’t have to keep up with all the tech and the changes, because that’s what we’re here for. Talk soon!