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Backing up your bank

The process of collecting and building a  bank of stories is a cumulative one. If you’re just starting out, it might seem like you’ve only got a few stories to tell about your family.

As you dig deeper (see other posts here and here on how to do that) and build up some momentum,  you will find that suddenly you have a collection of content—written stories, videos, photos—and you want to make sure you don’t lose them.

These days, digital platforms like Zahmoo are almost infallibly reliable, with several layers of their own systems of backing up data in place. Nevertheless, it’s still a very good idea to keep your own back-up files, just in case and for your own peace of mind.

There are a few ways you can back up your story bank. Firstly, export your files from Zahmoo using its export function. Then choose one or both of the options below.

Dropbox

Dropbox is a free cloud-based service. To set it up, go to dropbox.com and create an account. Your account will give you a folder with 2GB of memory. You can access this folder via your web browser and by mapping it to a filepath on your computer(s). You should be able to see your Dropbox folder in the My Computer area of your files.

To back up files using the computer folder, simply copy and paste them into the Dropbox folder.

To do it via the web, go to the website, sign into your account, and click “upload”. Check what the process is.

External hard drive

Another very simple way is to save your files onto an external hard drive—also known as a flash drive, zip disk, USB stick. You know what I’m talking about. You can get them for reasonable prices just about anywhere from a supermarket to a high-end electronics store.

Plug the drive into a USB port on your computer and in a few seconds your computer will recognise that it’s there and usually open a file folder showing what’s on the drive. Then you can select, copy and paste your files from your computer to your external drive. Keep the drive away from the computer in case one or the other is stolen or lost or damaged.

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Backing up your story bank should only take you ten minutes at the most each time you do it. Doing this every month or so is a tiny investment of time compared with the benefits of having your family history safe and virtually indestructible.

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Image credit: Memory by Chris Sinjakli under a Creative Commons Attribution licence

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