Memories: Making sure your kids can access them

If you’re anything like me, you have thousands of pictures and videos of your kiddos. I want to make sure every smile, laugh and scowl is captured and frozen in time as a memory. The trouble with this is simple: how can I store all these pictures and videos to ensure my kids can actually access them when they’re older? Printing out pictures and storing them in memory boxes is a thing of the past (although I do recommend printing pictures on occasion). Thankfully, technology has made it easier to catalog these memories, ensuring their viability for decades to come.

When it comes to pictures, I have found Flickr to be the best fit for my family. When I first started when my daughter was born, it was a free service with an insane amount of storage. A win win in my book. Since then, they have started charging for certain storage limits. They have monthly and annual plans. I pay $59.95 a year for unlimited storage. It may seem like a lot to some, but I have A LOT of photos so I need the unlimited storage space. Plus, if I were to print off even half my pictures, it would cost much more than that.

I like Flickr because it is extremely user friendly and maintains the integrity of the photos you upload. When you want to re-download the picture, you can choose the original resolution, or if you want a smaller file, a condensed version. One of the biggest reasons I chose Flickr is the simple way to organize your photos in albums. I categorize by month and year. This allows me to easily access that one photo I may need for a project. It also timestamps each photo with the date it was taken. The only caveat is the date doesn't’ transfer from some photos (photos saved from Snapchat or screenshots). I manually go in and change these dates and then sort the album by date taken. Voila! Organized photos!

A downside to Flickr is the inability to store video. It does allow you to upload vidoes, but I believe the last time I checked, they have to be under 3 - 5 seconds. So instead, I use YouTube to store all of our videos. I use our private channel so no one else can access the videos. To keep things organized, I name each video the date it was taken. If there is more than one video that day, I number them. For example, 12.25.19; 12.25.19 (2); 12.25.19 (3). Unlike Flickr, YouTube doesn’t automatically time stamp them so I do this to ensure I know when the videos were filmed. I also have arranged the videos in different playlists by month and year.

I’m sure there are a million other ways to organize your photos and videos, but this is what I have found to be the most efficient way for our family. I should also mention that I have shared the login information for both Flickr and YouTube with my husband and mom. That way, if anything should ever happen to me, my family can access them.

I also have tips on how to archive memories such as milestones, quotes and other noteworthy accomplishments. But we will save that for another blog post!

What about you? How do you ensure your photos and videos will last for decades to come? I’m curious to learn about what other people do!