How to back up photos kept in your browser

When photos stay only in the browser, a backup is the only safety copy there is. This guide shows how to make and restore a backup in webpins.

Why a backup matters

A site's data in the browser can disappear: when you clear the “site data”, when the device runs out of space, through a failure, when you switch computers or, in Safari, after about 7 days without opening the site. Since webpins has no server, nobody keeps a copy for you.

Option 1: a .zip file

1. Open the Backup page.
2. Choose to create the backup as a .zip.
3. Keep the downloaded file somewhere else: an external drive, a USB stick or the file service you already use.

The .zip holds the original photos, the albums and the captions. The limit is about 1 GB at a time, because the file is built in memory.

Option 2: save to a folder on your computer

In Chrome, Edge and Opera, on a computer, webpins can save the photos to a folder you choose, with one subfolder per album, and repeat that on its own for every new photo. You give permission once for that folder and can turn it off whenever you like. This option does not exist on phones or in Firefox and Safari.

How to restore

On the Backup page, choose the .zip, or add the folder where you saved the photos. Restoring only adds: it does not delete or duplicate anything that is already in the gallery. It is also the way to take your photos to another computer or browser.

Reminders

The site tells you when a backup is worth making: when there are 10 photos or more and no backup, 50 new photos since the last one, or 30 days since the last one with something new. The reminder can be put off for 7 days.