Quick Tip: Using Flickr For Photo Backups
We’ve looked at backup solutions for your photos previously, but I’ve recently started exploring the possibility of using Flickr as a way to keep images safely stored off-site. In today’s Quick Tip I’ll be explaining how this works, how much it costs, and how you could retrieve your images if the worst happens!
Backing Up To Flickr
Although the main purpose of Flickr is for sharing your images, the online service will also safely store the original file you upload – providing you have a Pro account. This costs $24.95 for one year, removes any upload or storage limits, and lets you save and access very large resolution files.
If you have a very large photo library, the process of uploading your entire catalog of old images is going to take a very long time. There’s no way around this, and it’s the cost of using any off-site type of backup system.
Fortunately, there are various plugins that can help simplify the process – whether you use Lightroom, Aperture, or any other application for managing images:
- Aperture and iPhoto have in-built Flickr integration. Be sure to check the box that asks whether you’d like to upload the original resolution file.
- This plugin is a good solution if you’re an Adobe Lightroom user.
- Alternatively, you can use the Flickr Uploadr to upload large batches of files directly from folders in Mac or Windows.
If the process of uploading your catalog of photos is too much to bear, consider adding it to your workflow for shoots from now onwards. You can always work backwards at a later date if you decide to.
Keep Photos Hidden
Obviously you won’t want your whole catalog of photos on display to the world. You can elect to keep them hidden when uploading, and just share those that you’re particularly proud of.
Downloading All Your Images
If the worst happens and you lose all your local copies (and backups) of your images, it would be a nightmare to go through each image individually on Flickr and download the original. Thankfully, there are various tools that make the restoration process fairly straight-forward:
- Flickr Backup – A free, open source option for downloading all your images.
- Flickrtouchr – A command line utility for those who prefer a geeky, technical solution.
- Flump – A cross-platform, Adobe Air application.
Don’t Rely on One Solution
Although Flickr seems like a very reliable web service, it would be foolish to rely solely on an online system for backup purposes. In all likelihood, your data is far safer on Flickr’s servers than it would be locally, but it pays to keep your own backup too.
The beauty with this solution is that it’s a very inexpensive way to keep all your photos stored off-site. It removes the headache of rotating hard drives between two locations, and is very cost effective (I imagine many of you already have a Flickr Pro account!)
I’d love to hear what other solutions you use for off-site backup. Feel free to share in the comments!
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please stop with this tutorials for beginners
It’s a tip, not a tutorial, you can always skip it if you don’t like it.
@ale How rude.
@Phototuts+ Thanks for the tip!
@ale I disagree! I admit it’s not a technical tutorial, but it sums up one simple and effective way to keep an online back up of your photo without buying a 4xRaid-1 disks server in a secured datacenter at the other side of the world.
So, it saves time for readers (or they should have spent hours loonking for these plugins, and see if that solution is effective).
What about those of us who want to store RAW files? Is there an online solution for that?
Nothing springs to mind immediately – no photo sharing-type service at least. You’d want to look into something like Dropbox, Mozy, or an Amazon S3 service for backing up files and directories I think.
Well, Dropbox really isn’t much of a backup service. It’s about sharing files between machines and / or users, not backing them up. For syncronisation and sharing it’s perfect, but not for backup – it’s quite expensive for that! $199/year for 100GB of space is a LOT.
The better solution in my opinion is to get a few good hard drives (I bought two WD Blue Series 640GB and a SATA QuickPort Pro) and back up (in encrypted form – cryptsetup whas the tool of my choicefor encryption, and rsync for backing up) everything on these. Then, store one at home and another somewhere else (maybe in your desk at work – it’s really important to have it encrypted in such a case), so in case of a fire etc., you don’t lose you data. If you take three (instead of my two) disks and store each of them in different places, you should be fairly secure. It was about $150 for me, and will be at a bit over $200 with three disks, which is what you pay for 1/6th of the space PER YEAR if you use dropbox. And remember, these costs are not returning for ten years (or when you want to replace the disks). So it’s quite a lot cheaper, and you can be sure that nobody except you can see your data.
Cool!
Yes I was thinking of doing so but I’m not sure you can upload RAW files.
Is it possible?
Thanks
i had to comment about this because it seems like we’re getting too “newbie” with these tips..last week with the guide to the memory cards, now with flickr backups..c’mon..another one was about the exposure settings on the camera…will there be also a tip about batteries?for 150 bucks i can write it also about how to clean the lenses :/
@ale… Tutorials sites like this should be for a wide range of users. Yeah, I tend to scroll on past the newbie ones like this and the other one, but I recognize that this is not a tutorial site for just me and people at my level.
I’d like to see more advanced tutorials, but complaining about newbie ones is pretty ridiculous.
Or if you have an online portfolio/website you could just back it up on the server.
If you’re a Mac user. MobileMe is the best solution. iDisk is great. http://www.apple.com/mobileme/
Actually, I have to second ale.
I’ve been euphoric when phototuts launched, but now I’m stopping by every once in a while – and in most cases I don’t read more than the headline.
Flickr as a backup solution – that’s a joke right? Ever thought about upload speed? That’s not a real life solution I recon…
Of course – I mentioned that it’s a slow process in the tip. It’s not a joke, and represents a really useful way to keep an off-site backup.
For a few hundred photos, you’re looking at an hour or two of leaving an upload running in the background. I’ve been doing it for the past month, and it’s definitely a real life solution!
Also, if you have any ideas for articles (or feedback as to why you’re not keen on any of the content we’re publishing), I’d love to hear from you. You can reach me at photo@tutsplus.com.
Thanks!
If you want a more serious solution you always can look to a uploading site like hotfile, filefactory, etc… this sites stores your files with out limitations and you can upload very large files and downloading, there are a little more expensive but very reasonable
Another useful plugin/app for flickr is http://www.rebeleos.com/FoldrMonitr/ set the folders you want to monitor and as soon as you add new images they will be uploaded to flickr. Very useful !!!
Thanks for the tip
@ale – I appreciate your view because I’m a web designer and sometimes over at nettuts the posts are a little “newbie” to me to, but the whole photos, cameras and photography are completely new to me and so tips like this really are interesting and valuable.
I doubt these tutorials/tips are fetching the $100 or so for the authors, I’ve written two myself so I’d be pretty annoyed if they were paying that for these snippets lol
I do not trust any online backup services with the exception of Amazon S3. I have tried Mozy, and it was a complete disaster.
My brother has come up with a great solution, he has two 500GB hard drives set up to mirror each other. He backs up all his photography and keeps one in a safety deposit box at his local bank, and the other hooked up to his Mac at home.
Once a month he heads to the bank and swaps the hard drives out, swaps the hard drives. This way the hard drive at the bank is always updated with the most recent backup, or at least for that particular month.
It may seem like a pain to do the swap, but personally my photos are worth it.
good idea. thank you for pointing it out. im gonna go with it my self
Another solution is MyFlickrBackup
http://www.myflickrbackup.com
It’s a console app for Windows that let’s you download your original-size photostream, organized into sets.
Please check it out.
Owen Wattley,
Creator of MyFlickrBackup