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In the beginning there was the World Wide Web and, for us common folk, it was used to send electronic mail and instant messages. Then the internet became a place where the average user could share their voice, videos, and pretty much everything else. But how permanent are these things we share? When it comes to the memories we want to hold on to, will they always be there?<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve all lived through our own different phases of the internet age. There was the AIM phase, Napster phase, Wikipedia phase, Skype phase, and of course the boom of social media with Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and more. Some of these websites and apps are still here, some look a little different, and some are not around anymore. (Like Vines, boy do we miss Vines!)<\/p>\n
In 2019, it was reported that internet users spend an average of two hours and 22 minutes per day on social networking. If we are spending even a fraction of that time each day creating content to be shared with family and loved ones, don\u2019t we want to make sure we have those creations forever?<\/p>\n
We think so! And so we\u2019ve developed a series of posts to help you retrieve your data from social media profiles, ranging from Facebook to Tiktok, and other services where the long term reliability of or your data might be in question. In this post we will go more in depth about best practices of how to back up this data once you\u2019ve downloaded it.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re like most people, you probably have your data spread out across multiple platforms. Depending on where you like, share, and post, there are various ways to download your data to keep a copy of it on your computer. But how do you figure out how to do this for each platform? We\u2019re glad you asked! Here\u2019s our list of guides you can consult right now. We\u2019ll work to grow this list over time, but don\u2019t hesitate to reach out if you\u2019d like to see different platforms covered.<\/p>\n
Due to the vast variety of options available on the internet, we may have missed a few you want to know about. While there\u2019s not one solution for every platform, there are some typical steps that could help you with a service we haven\u2019t covered yet:<\/p>\n
Some websites and apps have an area in your account settings or privacy settings where you can request your data, like Twitter, which has built this feature into their user account section. If functionality like that isn\u2019t immediately apparent, your next best option is to search the support FAQs to find the process for user data requests. Some platforms do not have this feature available at all yet, so you should be careful to understand the guidelines for retrieving data at any company before you start storing your photos, audio files, and more there.<\/p>\n
Once you’ve downloaded your data successfully, the next challenge is safeguarding it for the future.<\/p>\n
Downloading the internet memories you\u2019d like to keep is step one. If you\u2019re reading this, you probably already use Backblaze Computer Backup to safeguard the data on your PC or Mac. (If not, make sure your computer is backed up<\/a>, preferably with a 3-2-1 backup strategy<\/a>.) But just because you back up your data, that doesn\u2019t mean you want to keep archival memories on the computer you use every day.<\/p>\n Depending on the size of the data you downloaded, you may now have a far larger quantity of files on your computer than you\u2019d prefer. Those YouTube videos you made with your friends back in 2008 might be old, but they ain\u2019t small. Your computer may be thinking the same thing. Even if you choose to store the memories on an external hard drive<\/a>, remembering to plug in and back up multiple drives can be hard over the long term.<\/p>\n Backups are great for things you are actively using on your computer, but when you\u2019re done with a project or want to store a memory safely, you may want to think about archiving that data. In cloud storage and backup, an \u201carchive\u201d is a place to keep data for long term storage. Most importantly for this post, an archive helps to protect data you want to retain, but don\u2019t need regularly, while ensuring your computer can run its best with some freed up storage space.<\/p>\n Archives can be used for space management on your computer and long term retention. The original data may (or may not be) deleted after the archive copy is made and stored\u2014it\u2019s up to you! You can always store another copy on a hard drive if you want to be extra careful. This is the difference between computer backup and cloud storage. In both cases, data is stored in the cloud, but in backup, the data in the cloud is a copy of the data on your computer. In cloud storage, it\u2019s just saved data\u2014there\u2019s no mirroring or versioning.<\/p>\n Our Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage product allows you to create an archive of your data in various different ways. You can experiment with setting up your own archive by creating a B2 Cloud Storage Bucket within your Backblaze Computer Backup<\/a> account. It\u2019s easy, and more importantly, free: your first 10GB of data stored are on us!<\/p>\n For this example, I downloaded data from my personal blog, hosted on WordPress. My blog has various types of files (photos, videos, text, audio) so it\u2019s a good example of the diverse set of files that are good candidates for storing in the cloud.<\/p>\n After downloading<\/a> my data from WordPress and creating a new folder on my desktop filled with the files I want to archive, the next step is to sign into my Backblaze account. After signing in, I navigate to the left sidebar and select \u201cBuckets\u201d under the section \u201cB2 Cloud Storage.\u201d<\/p>\n On the B2 Cloud Storage Buckets page I select \u201cCreate a Bucket.\u201d You can think of buckets as a folders feature when storing data in B2 Cloud Storage. There is no limit to the number of files you can keep in a bucket, but there is a limit of 100 buckets per account.<\/p>\n When I select \u201cCreate a Bucket<\/a>\u201d a pop-up appears, guiding me to create a unique bucket name and decide whether the bucket will be \u201cprivate\u201d or \u201cpublic.\u201d Setting the bucket to \u201cprivate\u201d means that every download requires an authorization token. Setting it to \u201cpublic\u201d means that everybody in my group (if your account is a group) is allowed to download the files in the bucket.<\/p>\n When I create a bucket, I get to pick the name. The name must be unique\u2014never been used before by you or by anybody else. In other words, a bucket’s name is globally unique.<\/p>\n For my example, I named my bucket \u201cWordpressNicolePerry\u201d and set the bucket to private. Once the bucket is created you can start uploading files and folders.<\/p>\n When I click the button \u201cUpload,\u201d a pop-up appears, prompting me to drag and drop files or folders I want to upload to that bucket. And then, bazinga! Your files are now uploaded to the cloud!<\/p>\n If you have been backing up your computer for a while, you may be curious about cloud storage or have heard about cloud storage and thought it was too technical for you\u2014don\u2019t worry, we have all been there. But, the internet and social media seemed hard at first and now look at where we are at! Play around with buckets in B2 Cloud Storage. If you feel like they\u2019re the right spot to keep your memories, you can learn more about pricing and other functionality here<\/a>.<\/p>\nCreating a Backblaze B2 Archive<\/h2>\n
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<\/p>\nWow! Cloud Storage Is Easier Than I Expected<\/h2>\n