Making sure your pictures outlive you
Set up your photo collection so somebody can reach it later.
The pictures rarely vanish. The way in does.
Your library sits inside an account guarded by a password and a code sent to your phone. When somebody dies, the family often has neither. Companies will not simply hand the account over. Grieving people spend months on it and sometimes lose.
There are three things you can do this afternoon, and doing any one of them helps.
The paper feels old-fashioned. It also works when nothing else does, and it costs you an envelope.
Key points
- Photos rarely disappear. The way into the account does.
- Name a legacy contact in your account settings today.
- Keep one full copy on a drive in your house.
- Include captions and dates, or you save nameless faces.
- Tell one living person where everything is.
What to remember
- One named person plus one copy on a drive covers most of the risk.
- Security that only you can pass through becomes a wall around your own family.
- Finish the job with a sentence. Tell one person where the drive is kept.
Try this
Open your account settings, find the legacy contact page, name one person, and then tell that person you did it.
Practice: Making sure your pictures outlive you. Your first lesson is free, with no account or card; the rest are part of a Lantern plan. Interactive lessons require JavaScript.