How to Protect Yourself Against Getting Locked Out of Google, Dropbox, iCloud, OneDrive

If you are sensitive For tech disasters, you might want to look away now: a recent one Reddit thread Tells the story of one unfortunate user who found 30 years of photos and work locked and inaccessible on Microsoft OneDrive.

The person used their cloud storage account to consolidate files from different hard drives, which had to be discarded due to the move. The plan was to move the files back from OneDrive to the new hard drive, but before the user was able to do so, their account was locked by Microsoft – for no reason.

It’s still unclear why the account was locked or why Microsoft has so far ignored user pleas to regain access, but it’s a warning to the rest of us—and a reminder to maintain a few basic safeguards and precautions.

Keep multiple backups

It was a universally accepted fact that data was not properly backed up until it was backed up twice in two separate locations. You can copy your important files to an external hard drive, but if it’s in the same room as your laptop, theft, fire or flooding can wipe out both copies at the same time.

Today, having two backups of everything—so three copies in total—may seem excessive, as cloud storage services rarely go down. We’ve all gotten used to the idea that the data we’ve logged in with Microsoft, Google, Apple or other providers will always be available, so we don’t need to worry about it.

Applications often push you to delete local copies of your files

Photo: David Nield