The Bathtub & Backing Up Your Photos

A story about how important it is to back up your personal photos. Now, before you shut me down & assume that you need to pay for some way to back things up in the Cloud, let me share about one service you likely already have access to & you just don’t know about it! What am I talking about? Amazon Prime, of course!

Gather around, everyone: it’s storytime!

The Setup

It was Sunday night & it was bath night for the Abbey kiddos. Derrick had turned on the water to begin filling up the tub, while I was working with Braelynn & Leander to get their pajamas out, grab their towels, brush their teeth – all the fun bedtime, pre-bath stuff.

As I reached into the bathtub to test the water before dropping Leander in, I realized that it was cold – way cold. I quickly reversed the handles so that hot water was flowing into the tub. Leander was standing beside me, in his cute little Buttons Diaper, shrieking & jabbering on & basically jumping up and down he was so excited to be getting in the “big” tub.

I knelt down & began to swish the water back & forth with my hand – trying to redistribute the new super-hot water with the existing ice-bath. I had a hoodie on (as usual – it’s winter & I always have a hoodie on), so I hoisted up my sleeves & pulled my Apple iPhone 7 out of the pocket & set it on the ground. There was no danger of it falling into the water – I was sitting below the edge of the tub – but I’m super careful about cell phones & water.

The Backstory

(This will date me really fast:) Once upon a time I had a pink Motorola Razr cell phone – it was my pride & joy. I adored that phone. I babied that phone. I kept it safe from all the scary elements that might compromise it for well over a year. And then, one fateful day, I dropped it in the toilet. Worst day of my life. I cried. I did the best I could to revive it, but it was no use – it was a goner. And ever since that day, I have been exceptionally persnickety about my cell phone & water.

The Toss

(Back to the story) So, here’s the picture: I had eat my cell phone on the floor beside me. I was up on my knees, swishing water back & forth, & Leander was standing beside me – totally pumped up about his imminent bath.

And that’s when it happened.

Plop.

It didn’t even happen in slow-motion. In one swift, smooth movement, for whatever reason, Leander bent down, scooped up my phone, and tossed it into the tub.

Let that sink in for a moment (ha ha – get it? “sink” in?) I have gone without a “water-incident” with all of my cell phones since that fateful day my pink Razr took a dive into the toilet. But now: erase that 4-digit “days without incident” number because we were going back to “zero” – my iPhone was sinking to the bottom of the bathtub all because my sweet little boy had decided it would make a good bath toy.

The Reaction

I screamed. Derrick came running (he thought for sure Leander had fallen into the tub or something horrific had happened). I instantly fished my phone out of the tub & literally threw it at Derrick: “Take it downstairs & put it in rice – RIGHT NOW!” (said in a very loud, over-the-top, slightly terrified screech). All in all, it was in the water for probably 3 seconds. But I knew from experience: my pink Razr was in water for barely one second & it had been instant toast.

As Derrick raced my phone downstairs, I began to panic. Phones are 100% replaceable – they’re expensive, but they’re replaceable. All of the apps on my phone are replaceable – I could just hop into the Apple Store & re-download them. But there is one thing on my phone that is completely irreplaceable – in fact it’s priceless – and that’s my photos & videos.

The Panic

See, I don’t have a super huge amount of space on my phone. And with the amount of photos & videos I am constantly taking of my kids, I run out of space very quickly. For this reason, I move all of my photos & videos off of my phone about once a month. That way, I never run out of space & I can keep everything organized on my computer. That’s all well & good – except when it’s the beginning of January & I haven’t moved December’s photos & videos off of my phone yet.

All I could think was: Christmas is on my phone. Sure, I took photos at Christmas with my “big” camera, but I also took photos & videos with the camera I had the most quick, easy access to at all times: my phone. So, you can imagine the panic that began to set in.

The Hero

However – before the panic completely took over & I lost my mind (because, let’s be honest, I would lose my mind over this), I took a deep breath & realized: it’s okay. My photos might not be backed up on my computer – but they are backed up somewhere else: Amazon Photos.

The crazy part is: I literally just learned about this a few days before the “swimming” incident – so I’m willing to bet that if I didn’t know about it (or understand fully how it works) – you probably don’t know about it either!

Do you have Amazon Prime? Most likely the answer is yes.
Did you know that Amazon Prime is more than just free 2-day shipping? There are tons of other perks associated with Amazon Prime – like Prime Video (it’s how Braelynn watches Daniel Tiger & Bubble Guppies), Prime Music, and Amazon Photos.

One of the perks of Amazon Prime is “free unlimited photo storage”. And guess what? It’s super easy! There is a desktop app & a mobile app – you simply install them & you’re in business.

Well, that’s what I thought. I can’t use the desktop app because I have too many business photos on my computer (and Amazon makes it very clear that their unlimited photo storage is for personal photos only). That’s fine because I backup my business files to the Cloud via another system – but my phone is all personal photos – so I installed the Amazon Photos app a few months ago. And then I promptly forgot about it.

I assumed that, like the backup system I have on my computer, that it just worked in the background, backing up my photos. (Never assume people, it’s not good.) Needless to say, I was a little surprised when I received an email from Amazon about a week ago saying: “Hey! We noticed that you downloaded our app, but we only have 235 images backed up thru it.” That’s strange, I thought, and so I opened the app to check in on it. Turns out – it doesn’t work in the background – you actually have to open the app in order for it to back up your photos & videos.

I felt so stupid. But, the app quickly got to work & about 2 hours later, I had backed up all 2,847 photos & videos I had on my phone.

That all happened on Friday night. All day Saturday, it was like I was playing a game – if I would take a series of photos, I would just open the Amazon Photos app & let them upload. Bing-bang-bong. So easy! So freeing!

So now, I bring you back to Sunday night as my phone is taking a quick bath in the tub. I realized that all of my precious photos & videos were backed up & so – suddenly I wasn’t in panic-mode any more. Sure, I was still a little upset, but if that truly was the end of my iPhone – I would just get another one (time for an upgrade?)

The Outcome

After I tossed my phone to Derrick, he wisely powered it down, pulled it out of it’s case, and then buried it in rice. We left it there for several hours – meanwhile, I turned to Google: “Is an iPhone 7 waterproof?” and the answer I got was: “The Apple iPhone 7 is water-resistant with an IP67 rating” and further “IP67 means the unit can be dropped into a body of water up to a meter (3.2 feet) deep for half an hour.” Armed with this knowledge, and clinging to hope, I pulled my phone out of the rice & powered it on.

And it worked! And it’s still working! I basically cried happy tears (yes, I’m a little crazy).

The Conclusion

So, here’s the take-away: (and if you skipped all the way to the bottom of this post just to read the conclusion: in a nutshell, my son tossed my iPhone 7 in the bathtub, but I didn’t completely lose my mind because all of my photos were backed up!)
If you have Amazon Prime, do yourself a huge favor & download the Amazon Photos apps on both your desktop & smart phone. Then, just don’t forget to open the app on your phone every few days to let it do the work & back up your photos & videos. And WA-LA! You never have to worry about your phone dying, your harddrive crashing, or your phone taking a bath, ever again.

This post is (unfortunately) not sponsored by Amazon – I receive no compensation by encouraging you to download the Amazon Photos app. I just wanted to share something that I am currently finding incredibly useful & I think you will too!