7 steps for passing along your digital photo legacy
Protecting and accessing your photos and data is becoming more and more of a hot topic as we store more of our lives digitally. Ensuring that the people you love have access to your digital photos and memories when you pass on, and making sure that you have access to their memories, is important if you want those memories and your family’s legacy to live on.
Here are some tips for passing on your digital photo legacy:
1. Create a Legacy Collection by consolidating your digital photos and videos into one location and selecting your most important and treasured memories.
Passing along every photo you’ve ever taken is overwhelming to the people left behind. Curating your collection by choosing only those treasured photos that really tell your family’s story, will help ensure that your and your family’s legacy will live on. Creating this collection is a gift to your family.
2. Store a copy of your photos and videos on a computer hard drive or an external hard drive and back them up in a cloud service. Cloud services are big business right now and many of them want to store your photos. I love a cloud service for backup and accessing your memories from different devices, but I don’t recommend relying 100% on a cloud service alone to store and keep your memories safe.
I encourage you to own a copy of your digital photos and videos on a hard drive that you or someone else can access without the internet. Depending on the service, your Legacy Contact may have trouble getting access to your cloud account(s) in the event of your death.
Having a second copy in a cloud site provides backup and if set up well and shared, provides easy access to multiple people.
3. Create a list of where your digital photos and videos are stored with log on details for your devices (e.g. phones, computers, tablets). Don’t forget to include the location of backups!
4. Identify a person or persons that you would like to manage the process of accessing your digital memories in the event of a death, and share your list with them. It’s probably a good idea to choose someone who is somewhat computer savvy and can manage the technology.
5. Where possible, set up Legacy Contacts within the cloud services or accounts that you use for your photos and videos.
If you are an iPhone or Mac user, Apple makes this very easy. To add a Legacy Contact for an Apple ID, all that is needed is an Apple device running these versions or newer…iOS 15.2, iPadOS 15.2, or macOS Monterey 12.1.
To set up a Legacy Contact on your iPhone:
Go to Settings, then tap your name.
Tap Password & Security, then tap Legacy Contact.
Tap Add Legacy Contact. You might be asked to authenticate with Face ID, Touch ID, or your device passcode.
To set up a Legacy Contact on your Mac:
Choose Apple menu > System Settings (formerly System Preferences), then click Apple ID.
Click Password & Security, then click Legacy Contact (Manage).
Click Add Legacy Contact. You might be asked to authenticate with Touch ID or your Mac login password.
6. Write down if there is anything specific that you would like done with your photos and videos. For example, you may have some heritage family photos in your collection that you want extended family members to have access to. Share those wishes with your Legacy Contact.
7. Consider creating an online family gallery for your Legacy Collection and share it with the people you love now. Don’t wait. Having a location where your most important photos and videos live, and where additional people can access them, will make this process so much easier later.
An additional step that people are taking with their digital data and assets is adding it to their estate plan. While your photos likely don’t have monetary value, they do hold great sentimental value. Adding it to your will makes it easier for people to gain access to digital accounts. Even if your loved ones are aware of the access information, they may not legally be able to enter them if they are not designated to do so in your will. Consult your attorney for more information about adding digital assets to your estate plan.
Curating a legacy collection, making sure it is protected with good backups, and having a solid plan for passing along your digital legacy, will help to ensure that your family’s stories will be preserved and shared for generations to come.
Need help curating your Legacy Collection? Set up a free consultation HERE.
AND…grab our FREE GETTING STARTED GUIDE that includes tips for how to get started organizing your photos. It helps you create a plan and teaches you how to take inventory of your collection.
Holly Corbid is the Founder/Owner of Capture Your Photos, where we help you to organize, preserve, and share your lifetime of memories. Helping you touch hearts with your photos is our passion. We specialize in digital photo organization and work remotely with clients all over the country.
Find us at www.captureyourphotos.com or contact us here.