I Accidentally Deleted My Photos Permanently
What to learn about memory, backing up, and storage.
Google alerted me that my Google Drive storage was almost full. I use the free version of 15 GB of storage, and it was 86% full when the alert turned up in my email.
I consider myself organized when it comes to backing up photos. I backed up by years, and 2023 photos were backed up already in my other cloud storage. That’s what I thought before my flaw was revealed before me.
My flaw
I checked my Google Drive, and it was mostly photos—not documents—that occupied the space. Staring at the stats, it’s an easy decision for me on what to throw away to free up the drive.
I immediately erased all 2023 photos from my Google Drive because I thought they’re all already backed up in my other storage. I even deleted them from the trash to ensure the larger free space, so their chance of them being recovered was zero.
The disaster was revealed when I looked for photos from March 2023 on my other storage. I planned to use the photos for my Medium story. After going to and fro among folders, I couldn’t find any! Finally, I came to the conclusion that I forgot to back up them in the other storage. Why did I think that I already backed them up?
