Back up your photos and files

Phones break, laptops get lost and drives fail. A backup keeps your photos and documents safe.

The 3-2-1 rule

• Keep 3 copies of anything important.
• Store them on 2 different kinds of storage, such as your computer and an external drive.
• Keep 1 copy away from home, such as in a cloud storage service.

Easy steps

1. Turn on automatic photo backup in your phone's settings or your cloud service.
2. Copy important files to an external drive once a month.
3. Keep a cloud copy of documents you cannot replace, such as tax papers and IDs.

Check that it works

Once or twice a year, try to open a few backed-up files on another device. A backup you cannot restore does not help.