Paraben Photo Backup STICK User manual

Paraben’s Photo Backup Stick
V4.0
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User Manual

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Contents
About Paraben’s Photo Backup Stick for Computers ......................................................3
What’s New? ...................................................................................................................4
Getting Started ................................................................................................................5
Backing Up Phones & Tablets - Using the Windows App................................................8
Application User Interface ............................................................................................. 10
Scan for Photos............................................................................................................. 12
Photo & Video Types..................................................................................................... 14
Remove Duplicates ....................................................................................................... 15
Copying Your Backup to Another Location.................................................................... 17
Organize Backups ......................................................................................................... 19
Viewing Photos.............................................................................................................. 19
Deleting Backups .......................................................................................................... 22
Troubleshooting............................................................................................................. 24
Restoring Your Photo Backup Stick .............................................................................. 26
How Many Photos/Videos Can I Backup?..................................................................... 27

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About Paraben’s Photo Backup Stick
The Photo Backup Stick is an easy-to-use picture and video backup tool for Windows &
Mac computers. This special USB drive has backup software that makes it easy to back
up photos and videos from computers and drives & devices attached to the computer.
There are no monthly cloud storage fees.
With the Photo Backup Stick, you have a physical device with a copy of your precious
photos and videos.
Please Note: To extend the life of flash drives, please follow these tips
1. When removing the drive, go to the system try icon to “Safely Remove Hardware”
2. Avoid electrostatic discharge. Static shocks can cause irreversible damage or loss
3. Replace the cap when not in use to prevent dirt and debris from damaging ports
4. Do not keep drives plugged into computers indefinitely
Website
https://photobackupstick.com
Phone Support
801-930-5821
Email Support
[e-mail]

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What’s New?
•Updated the Windows App:
oAdded a Photo Viewer to make viewing photos easier.
oImproved the interface to make scanning for photos in different locations
easier.
•Updated the Apple Mac App:
oAdded a Photo Viewer to make viewing photos easier.
oAdded “Remove Duplicates” button under “Options”.
oAdded “Copy Backup to Computer or Drive” button under “Options”.
oImproved the interface to make scanning for photos in different locations
easier.

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Getting Started
We made the Photo Backup Stick the easiest tool for creating photo backups for
Windows & Mac computers, Apple iPhones, iPads, & iPod Touch, and Android Phones
& Tablets.
Backing Up from Windows Computers
To quickly backup all photos stored on your computer, plug the Photo Backup Stick into
a USB port on your computer.
Run the PhotoBackupStartup.exe app found on your Photo Backup Stick USB drive.
You will see the Start Page:
To start your backup of just the photos in your Pictures folder on your Windows
computer, click the Start Backup button.

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Next, choose where to back up from:
•Backup from my Pictures folder – backs up from the Pictures folder for the
current user (note: if you are backing up videos, they will be backed up from the
Videos folder).
•Backup from my C: Drive – If you are unsure where your photos are stored, you
can choose to backup all photos on your entire C: drive.
•Backup from other locations – You can specify other drives or folders to scan.
Click the Start Backup button to begin your photo backup.
Note: You can connect phones and tablets to your PC to back them up using the
Windows app. For instructions, see the “Backing Up Androids – Using the Windows
App” or “Backing Up iPhones/iPads/iPods – Using the Windows App” sections of the
help file.
You will see the progress of the backup.

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After the backup is complete, click the Close button.
On the complete screen, you can choose to view the backed-up photos, go to the Start
Page, or Exit the program.
That’s it. Your files are backed up to the “Backup” folder on your Photo Backup Stick
Universal drive.

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Backing Up Phones & Tablets - Using the Windows App
You can back up Apple and Android phones or tablets using the Windows app. Start by
plugging your device into your PC.
Note: If you haven’t connected your Android to your computer to transfer data before,
you may need to select “Media device (MTP) in the notifications. Also, you will need to
trust the computer on Apple devices.
Next, run the Photo Backup Stick Windows app:
On the next screen, check the box next to your connected device. Note: You can back
up your PC and other devices connected to your computer at the same time.
If you want to backup videos, check the box next to “Check here to back up videos”.

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After checking the box for your connected device, click the Start Backup button to
begin your photo backup.
You will see the progress of the backup.

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Application User Interface
Start Page Buttons
The Start Page has six buttons
Start Backup – Starts your photo backup according to the selected options
Photo Viewer – Displays your backed-up photos
Options – Allows you to select where to scan for photos and what file types to scan for
Help – Opens this help file
About – Tells you the version number, copyright info, and support info for the Photo
Backup Stick
– Opens the backup folder on your Photo Backup Stick USB drive
Note: This button will not be active until you have done a backup

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Backup Page
The backup page shows you what devices are available to back up. By default, the PC
will always be available. If you have an iOS device (iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch) or an
Android phone or tablet connected to your computer, they will appear here.
Select Location – This button allows you to choose where to scan for photos/videos.
Refresh – This button checks for newly connected phones or tablets. If your device isn’t
displaying, check your connection and click the “Refresh” button. If your device still isn’t
being detected, check that you have trusted the computer and/or the device settings are
set to data transfer.
Back – The “Back” button takes you back to the Start Page.
Start Backup – The “Start Backup” button begins your backup with the selections you
have chosen.

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Scan for Photos
By default, the Photo Backup Stick only backs up photos from the Pictures folder and
videos from the Videos folder of the current user. Many people store photos and videos
in different locations. The Photo Backup Stick allows you to select specific folders or
entire drives to scan for photos/videos.
To back up photos/videos stored in other locations on your computer, you can either
choose to backup from your C: drive or add other locations manually. To add locations
to scan, click the Start Backup button from the home screen. The backup options page
will appear:
Check the circle next to “Backup from other locations” and click the “Select Location”
button.

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Click the “Add” button.
A Windows explorer window will open. Navigate to the drive or folder you want to
backup using the left-side navigation. Once you have selected a drive or folder, click the
“Select Folder” button on the bottom left.
Note: You can add multiple drives and folders to your scanning locations. To add an
entire drive, navigate to the root folder of the drive and click “Select Folder”. To add
individual folders, open the folder and click “Select Folder”.

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To scan your entire computer, add every drive you see (i.e. C:, F:, H: etc.). Do not add
the Photo Backup Stick drive.
You can also select folders and drives from your folders list and click the “Remove”
button to remove any unwanted locations from your Photo Backup Stick.
Repeat the process of adding and removing locations until you have added all the
locations.
Remember, the Photo Backup Stick will scan all folders and sub folders in a location
recursively so you only have to add the top-level folder and it will find all photos in that
folder and all folders and sub-folders in the top folder.
Photo & Video Types
Photos can come in many different image or file types. The most common type is JPEG
or JPG. Because of this, you cannot unselect these formats. To scan for different
photo/video types, go to the Options screen and check the file types you wish to scan
for:
Click the “OK” button to save your changes.

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Remove Duplicates
The Photo Backup Stick is designed so it will only backup photos once. This means if
you perform a backup on a computer, phone, or tablet, it will back up all the photos
once. If you back up that device again, it will only backup new photos.
However, it cannot detect when a computer, phone, or tablet has duplicate photos. If
you have multiple copies of the same photo in different locations or with different
names, they will be backed up. Also, if you have the same photo on a computer and
phone or tablet and you back up both devices, your Photo Backup Stick will have both
copies on the stick.
To find these duplicates, the Photo Backup Stick calculates the hash value, otherwise
known as a file fingerprint, to detect duplicates. This means that no matter where the
duplicate is or what it is named, if it is an exact duplicate, we can detect it and remove it.
To remove duplicates, go to the Options screen and click the “Remove Duplicates”
button.

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Scanning for and removing duplicates can take a long time. You will be asked if you are
sure you want to proceed. If you want to proceed, click the “Yes” button.
After it scans for duplicates, the Photo Backup Stick will ask you one more time if you
want to procced to remove duplicates. This operation cannot be undone so be sure you
want duplicates removed before you click “Yes”.
Once complete, you will see the success screen:
Note: Similar photos are not the same as duplicates. If you take several photos of the
same thing, these are not duplicate photos and the Photo Backup Stick cannot detect
that they are similar. Only exact duplicates will be removed with this process. If a photo
has an exact duplicate but it has been edited, cropped, a filter has been used, or the
photo has been changed in any way, it will no longer be detectible as a duplicate.

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Copying Your Backup to Another Location
To copy your backed-up files to your computer, another location on your computer, or to
other drives, go to the Options screen and click the “Copy backup from the stick to PC”
button.
A window will pop up. Navigate to the drive or folder you want to copy your files to and
click the “Select Folder” button. Your files backed up on your Photo Backup Stick will be
copied to the location you selected.

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Note: We recommend that you have more than one copy of your photos/videos. USB
drives are small and can be easily lost or stolen. Also, static charges or other external
factors can render a USB drive inoperable making it impossible to access your backups.

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Organize Backups
There are two options for photo organization in the Options. If you select “Keep
Backups Organized”, your photos will be saved in the same folder structure as they
were on your computer. This means if photos are organized on your computer in
different folders (i.e. by location name, date, event, etc.), they will stay organized in the
same folder structure.
If you choose “Don’t Organize Backups”, your photos will be backed up into one folder
on your stick despite where they are found on your computer.
Viewing Photos
Once your backup has completed, you can click the “View Photos” button to open the
backup folder that contains your photos. You can also go back to the Start Page or Exit
the program. Your photos will remain backed up to your Photo Backup Stick USB drive
until you delete them.

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Note: Besides the “View Backup” button on the screen after a backup is complete, you
can also view photos by going to the Start Page and clicking the “View Backup” button
there. You can also view photos without running the backup app by plugging in your
stick and navigating to the “backup” folder.
Your backups will be stored in the “backup” folder on the stick. Each device that has
been backed up will have its own folder based on the device name.
You can change your folder view to show thumbnails of all your backed-up photos by
clicking the “View” tab and then select the size of the icons.