Looking for computer help
 

I need help moving files from an old desktop to a laptop. I have ZERO computer skills so I'm concerned I will lose pictures or important files. Any help appreciated and I'm willing to pay. Thanks, Bryan

If you have a Google account and the files are less than 15gb, go to "drive.google.com" on your desktop. Click on "my drive" and drag and drop the files to the "my drive". Then, go to "drive.google.com" on the laptop and copy the files to the laptop.

Another method is to copy the files to a flash (thumb) drive, move the flash drive to the laptop, and copy them to the laptop.

You want Jon Townsend, he did that for me perfectly. 352-250-1686

I used to copy files to a flash drive and then physically move the flash drive to the new device and paste them all to a subdirectory in the new device.

Now, I just keep the flash drive in my current device, and save ALL my files to that flash drive. When I get a new machine I simply take that drive and insert it into the new machine, and everything is still exactly where I put it the first time around.

Flash drives fail when used in that manner. You are risking total loss of all you files. That is a very risky procedure to do, and promote.

All important files need to be in at least 2 places, one of which is in the cloud. Out of the house where a fire, hurricane, theft, will not reach.

I agree. I use my Google drive to store all important documents. If you scan them, they use very little data storage. Everyone who has a Google account, which is almost everyone, has 15gb of free cloud storage that can be accessed on "drive.google.com" from any internet device. Many people don't even know that they have the free storage.

Does anyone have any idea how many photos or documents you can store with 15 gigabytes of free storage?

May want to disclose what village you live in..............the transfer process is easy, a poster might jus swing by if close and hammer this out for you.

:beer3:

You can also buy a data transfer cable on Amazon if you're unsure about the cloud transfer process. Just plug it in to both computers and follow the instructions. It just a drag and drop process of files and folders.

Most scanned documents are less than 1mb per page, so you should be able to store more than 15,000 pages.

Photos can vary greatly in data size, but typically, most photos require about 1mb per photo, unless you are using a very high resolution.

The cloud is only useful if you're online when you need a file. It's useless if you're in a situation when you don't have internet access.

My photos are in several places - on my hard drive, on google drive, on my flash drive, on my phone.

My data files are on a flash drive, though I do have some duplication to my hard drive on my desktop computer with some of the files. The only exception are the files I created using google sheets and google docs. Those are initially on the cloud server, and THEN I convert them to libre office formatting and save them to my flash drive. I don't use google sheets or docs for much though.

Most of my programs are on a flash drive, and I have my entire computer ghosted to an SD card.

This is the same flash drive I've had for seven years. It's fine. The USB port I usually stick it in is getting wobbly because my cat keeps rubbing against the drive. The data on the drive is still perfectly secure and allows me to work (and read books) offline.

I always convert my raw photos to jpgs, and that reduces the size from (sometimes over 2mb) to around 400kb or less.

Cloud is only accessible by wifi? What? Everytime you log in to Google mail, iCloud, or whatever cloud from your phone, you think you are using wifi?
You can get to the cloud using LTE, 4G, or 5G cell service.
I wouldn’t use a flash drive either for files, I would get a usb disk that doesn’t need any external power. But that’s the last thing I would do.
If somebody can come in and steal your computer, where are your important files? Probably not encrypted, probably not password protected.
And people wonder how their valuable info gets in the wrong hands.
HDDs are cheap, TBs for Pennies. The days of compressing files to save space have been over for decades. My photos are tens of MBs in size for each photo. I keep them in this size so if I want to modify them, I have all the data. If I have to send a photo in an email, then I convert it to a jpeg.

I used "Computer Corner"---Michael Frymier from Leesburg: 352-460-1155. He did all of that for we when we got a new computer.

Dropbox is a fine alternative or supplement to Google Drive. You set up a top level folder of everything that you might want to move, data, documents, etc. Then set that drive to be duplicated on the internet. You can work locally. Files will be synchronized with the internet copy the next time you are connected. It also does not matter if you decide that you want to switch platforms, Windows, Mac, even Linux, not that you care about that option. :)

Much easier than using USB or external drives.