What to Backup on Your Computer

If your hard drive was to suddenly crash or you accidentally deleted an important file or document it could be impossible to recover if you do not back up your computer properly and regularly. Backing up your computer’s important folders, drives, and files is something that you should do regularly. However, you should know what to backup on your computer.

It’s recommended to have a backup scheduled daily. However, in some cases, a weekly backup would be sufficient, especially if you do not use the computer that often. Either way, you should plan on backing up your computer frequently to ensure the information is secure. Here is a checklist to help you make sure that you are backing up the right files from the proper locations. We’ll also sure the backup is set up correctly and regularly.

What Data You Should Backup on Your Computer

Every computer user needs to consider the things that they need to have included in their scheduled backups. So, the first thing to do is to make sure that you keep important data in easy-to-find locations. Some of the other things to consider when setting up your backup include:

Documents

Check the folders where you keep your important documents. Most users will have a “My Documents” folder on their computer so this is the most common folder. If this is where you keep your important docs, then you need to add this folder to the backup.

When doing this, also consider checking your “My Downloads” folder. You may have downloaded some important documents you may have forgotten about. Your desktop is another place to check. You should move any important docs on there to your documents folder. This way, they get included in the backup of that location.

Pictures

Most users keep their pictures in their “My Pictures” folder on their computer. However, some users have multiple locations for their pictures. Keeping them all in one folder is important, especially if you want to make sure they are all backed up.

For backup purposes, it is important to go through common folders where pictures may have been placed beside your pictures folder. The downloads folder and your desktop should be checked and all pictures not in one specific folder should be moved there. In addition, future pictures should always go in that folder.

Music/Video

These are other files most people do not want to lose. This is also something that should all be stored in a specific folder. The most common place to store these files is in your “My Music” folder. Any files that are anywhere else should all be moved into the folder of your music, which is one of the folders that you want to make sure is included in the backup.

Email

If you use an email program that stores your emails locally on your hard drive, be sure to select the folder that you store these in so that the folder gets back up. Backing up your email is a proactive measure to protect against data loss, security threats, and technical issues, and to ensure continuity in both personal and professional contexts.

Bookmarks

This is a big one that many people forget about. If you don’t back up your bookmarks, you may lose some sites that are in your bookmarks that you may need to find again. Backing up your bookmarks is something that you should always do so you don’t forget some of the sites that you felt were important enough to bookmark in the first place.

Most browsers let you choose different file types so that you can export your bookmarks. Therefore, backing this up to a specific folder is a good way to ensure you do not lose anything.

PC Setup

Setting up your computer the way that you like it can take some time. Naturally, this is something else you want to back up that most backup software has an option for. So when setting up your backups be sure to include this in every backup, it can save you a lot of time.

This all boils down to the proper organization of your computer’s files and folders. Getting into a habit of storing things in the allocated folders every time you save any files is something that helps you more than just having an organized computer. This will help ensure your computer is backing up all of your important files when it runs its scheduled backup. Backing up your computer eliminates the concern your data will be unrecoverable in the event of a data crash.