Saving Emailed Pictures

This week, one of my clients experienced something we all fear: she lost some pictures she thought were saved in her computer.

Other than the loss of the pictures themselves, the saddest part is that this was easily avoidable.

Her method of storing these particular pictures — which were sent to her by email — was just not to delete the emails. As long as she could access her email account, she could find the pictures in her inbox. That is, until something unexpected happened to her email account (probably at the email company, not specifically on her computer) and all but her most recent emails disappeared. Sigh.

The lesson: save emailed pictures to your computer’s hard drive; don’t rely on saved emails.

How you save pictures to your hard drive depends on the kind of computer and software you have, but in many cases, you can drag and drop the picture from your email to your desktop or into a photo program. Another option is to click “download” and choose where you wish to save it. On mobile devices, you can usually tap and hold the image until the “save image” option appears.

Then be sure to back up your computer files!