How to use Picasa to backup all photos to an External hard drive?

Backing up your photos is critical to avoid losing those precious memories if your computer crashes. Picasa makes it easy to backup all your photos to an external hard drive. In this comprehensive guide, we'll walk through the entire process step-by-step.

Prerequisites

Download and Install Picasa

If you don't already have Picasa installed, you'll need to download it from the official website. Follow the prompts to install Picasa on your Windows or Mac computer.

Have an External Hard Drive

You will need an external hard drive with enough storage capacity to hold all your photos. A 1TB or 2TB portable hard drive works very well. Connect it to your computer via USB.

How to Backup Photos with Picasa

Open Picasa and Choose Folder Options

Launch Picasa on your computer. Click the "Folder Manager" button in the top right. This allows you to select folders to backup.

Select Folders to Backup

In the folder manager, choose the folders where your photos are saved on your computer's hard drive. Common folders include My Pictures, Pictures, Photos, and folders for specific years or events. Check the box next to each folder you want to backup.

Assign the Backup Destination

Still in the folder manager window, click the dropdown next to "Backup to" and select your external hard drive. This assigns the external drive as the destination for your photo backups.

Run the Initial Backup

Click the green button for folder backup at the bottom of the folder manager window. This will start copying all photos from your selected folders to the external hard drive. The initial backup could take hours depending on how many photos you have.

Schedule Regular Backups

Once the initial backup completes successfully, click the dropdown next to "Back up to this destination" and choose a backup frequency (e.g. weekly, monthly). This will automatically continue backing up new photos on the schedule you set.

Alternative Backup Options

Use Picasa Web Albums

In addition to a physical hard drive, you can choose to backup your photos to secure Picasa Web Albums online. This provides an extra layer of protection if both your local and external drives fail.

Try Another Backup Software

Programs like Carbonite, iDrive, CrashPlan and others also make it easy to schedule ongoing, automatic backups not just for photos but other important files too. Consider paying for a subscription backup service for maximum security.

Quick Tip to ensure your videos never go missing

Videos are precious memories and all of us never want to ever lose them to hard disk crashes or missing drives. PicBackMan is the easiest and simplest way to keep your videos safely backed up in one or more online accounts. Simply Download PicBackMan (it's free!), register your account, connect to your online store and tell PicBackMan where your videos are - PicBackMan does the rest, automatically. It bulk uploads all videos and keeps looking for new ones and uploads those too. You don't have to ever touch it.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I restore my photos from the external drive backup?

Simply plug your external hard drive into any computer and open Picasa. Click the "Folder Manager" and look in the folder designated for your computer. All your photos will appear just like they do locally so you can access them normally.

What if my external drive fills up?

Upgrade to a bigger drive (4TB+ recommended) or buy an additional external hard drive so Picasa can continue backing up your new photos. It will simply start filling up the new drive automatically.

Does Picasa work on Mac computers?

Yes! The Picasa downloader and software works seamlessly on Windows PCs and Apple Mac devices. The backup process is identical.

Conclusion

Following this straightforward Picasa tutorial allows you to easily setup a reliable photo backup solution. Never lose your precious photos again by backing up Picasa folders to an external hard drive. Rest easy knowing you have multiple protected copies of all your images in case disaster strikes. Check and verify backups regularly.