The Life-Changing Benefit of Storing Your Memories Permanently

I know why it’s tough to store your photos, videos and more in a safe, secure place. It seems like you don’t have time. So many other things are priorities.

But storing your memories digitally—and permanently—has lifetime benefits for your family that will last for generations to come.

Photo by picjumbo.com, Pexels.com

Here’s a brief story:

My family used to live in the foothills above Pasadena where we had dramatic views of the Los Angeles basin and the ridges leading to Mount Wilson, a mile high. But we also had scrub brush and dry grasses on the hillsides.

You know what that means, right? Fire danger.

And, yes, we had to evacuate once when flames tore through the brush, scorching the slopes. Fortunately, we had planned ahead and had our many traditional scrapbook albums ready to whisk away to safe keeping.

But what if …?

I’ve been a photo coach for almost 30 years and for those of us who live in Southern California we’ve heard it over and over.

Photo by Suzy Hazelwood, Pexels

If you need to evacuate because of brush fires make sure you know where your valuables are like your family photos. Have them ready to go at a moment’s notice.

Easier said than done?

Setting Priorities

It seems like we’re born with long to-do lists and they keep growing longer as we age. We spend hours on schoolwork as students and hours forming relationships as young adults. Many of us shift priorities between children, careers, and grandchildren.

Every day has plenty of good things to occupy our time.

My main album, Travel Memories, has sub-albums or nested albums

What happens to our traditional scrapbook albums, videos, slide shows and other memories? They get left behind, put on the back burner, and yet they are a chronicle of our lives and family history.

But once you understand the benefits of permanent, digital storage compared with the risks of not storing digitally then you’ll be more likely to prioritize small blocks of time to safeguard your memories.

Not All Digital Storage is Permanent Storage

There’s only one digital platform that I trust with safeguarding my family’s memories for the next dozen or more decades: FOREVER®. That’s right, I have a photo of my late grandmother when she was only 4 years old in the early 1900s.

I had it digitized and now it’s stored in my FOREVER account

My grandmother, Albine Castagno,4 yeards old in 1910.

The picture is now more than 100 years old. My great-grandchildren, and their children, will be able to access that same photo in another 100 years and more. In fact, I have two scrapbooks I created with my grandmother in 1991. The photos and stories written in those photo albums are digitized and preserved, too.

How?

Permanence happens in two ways: with technology and your ownership.

Relevant Technology

FOREVER® is guaranteed to last a lifetime, plus 100 years and much longer. As your current file formats become obsolete, then FOREVER® will migrate them to the newest format without any cost or obligation to you or your loved ones, thanks to the FOREVER® guarantee.

Account Ownership

On FOREVER® you’re saving your files into an account you can actually own. I own my FOREVER® account so that means I’m in control. I own ALL digital rights to my content and can set Preservation Settings to tell what I want to happen with my files after I’m deceased. In addition, I can appoint Account Managers to help manage my account when I’m not able to. These are Unique controls offered by FOREVER®.

I’ll be glad to share more of how it works:

from digitizing older photos and out-of-date media files
to storing photos in the section called your Library

Scroll to the end of this post and see how you can take a brief tour of FOREVER®. It’s a lot of fun and it’ll take about 20 minutes.

What about other digital storage options? Aren’t they just as good?

Please note that not all digital storage is permanent. Much of it is temporary. Some of the storage like social media is free while you only pay low monthly fees for other platforms.

You’re risking the platforms changing and not hosting your files and you’re subject to data mining with your content being used for marketing purposes.

Many times you give up your digital rights to the content you store with them, thus they own your photo or video and have to the right to do what they want with it. Scary, isn’t it? Always read the fine print in their Terms of Services.

Here’s a chart you skim to see the differences between FOREVER® and other sites.

Chart Comparing FOREVER to other services

Download via Melody Whitehead

Risks of Not Storing Memories Digitally

There are risks to keeping your older files on your shelves or in your closets. Or on your outdated hardware.

Let’s face it. Technology changes and breaks down.

How long will external hard drives and flash drives be usable? The shelf life for them re 2 to 5 years and they can corrupt at any time. And they’re tough to use anyway since CD and DVD drives don’t exist on many of our current laptops and tablets.

Storing your photos and other files on FOREVER® is like having photo insurance. Emergencies are unpredictable and they can rob us of what we value.

At the bottom of this post is a link to a story of a family losing many of their older printed photos in a house fire.

A Wonderful Benefit of Using FOREVER®

Peace of mind is one of the great benefits of using FOREVER® as a friend and colleague of mine knows. Michelle Collinge who had spent countless hours uploading photos to her computer.

Michelle now prints her photo books from her permanently stored photos

And then … crash went the hardware and her pics were lost.

She’s been using FOREVER® and protects older files and current photos.

“It’s nice that I can upload pictures from my phone. FOREVER® makes it easy. I love that and the digitization of old files.”

I link to her story below.

Take a Closer Look

I’ve been using FOREVER® for several years now and can show you how it works.

Me and mom today

Let me know if you’d like your very own behind-the-scenes tour. Use the contact form on my website to get in touch or email me directly:

melody@safeguardyourmemories.com

It’ll take about 20 minutes and you’ll enjoy seeing how it works.

I also invite you to sign up for 2 free GB of storage space if you’d like to get the experience of uploading to FOREVER®.

You can also join a virtual event to learn the platform and write your family story. Check the Events page on this site.

I’ve been so excited to use FOREVER®’s technology and enjoy the people behind the company and I’d love to answer questions and guide you in preserving your family’s memories.