I am beyond delighted to be sharing this guest article with you! Sophie Denman, my friend and course-mate, writes an archives blog over at sophiearchives.wordpress.com. I am so excited for this article, because I have a cassette (pictured above) that is really special to me. It contains a recording my now-20-year-old brother as a baby telling me a story about "The Scary Owl". Thank you so much for this, Sop...

Step 0: Why?

Why do you want to download your data from Facebook?

If your main interest is in photos, you'll find the photos on Facebook are of a lower quality than the originals. So if you are hoping for higher quality images, then try to find the pictures you took. Or if someone else uploaded the pictures, try asking them for copies of the originals.

Otherwise, let's go!

Step 1: Go to the Settings Menu

Log int...

Step 1: Know your Why

As always, start off by deciding what you want to achieve by doing this. What are you going to need your archive to do for you?

Do you want the peace of mind of knowing you have copies of working emails? If something goes wrong, or you switch email providers, you can restore your messages and carry on. If this is you, then you only need to make back-ups and can ignore Steps 2 and 4.

But p...

A useful tool for helping you keep your digital projects organised is PowerShell. If you are new to PowerShell, this is an easy step-by-step guide to help you set up a system to keep on top of your files.

I am assuming you are already confident using the graphical user interface (GUI) - i.e. the one that looks like this:

If not, then you will want to use a guide more like this one.

The Commands Toolkit

Here are...

There are three reasons why you should keep digital things:

1. You love them and you want to keep them forever.

2. They are important and you need to keep them forever.

3. You need them for now and have to hold onto them for a while.

But exactly like physical clutter, we also keep things for two other reasons:

4. What if I want it one day?

5. Uhh - that old rubbish?! I totally forgot I had that!

Reasons 2-5 are ea...

This article on how to archive your Instagram photos is a collaboration with the wonderful Anastasia Sk! I wrote the guide, and she created the video demos using her beautiful Instagram account.

Know your why

There are tons of reasons why you might want to archive your Instagram posts.

1. Something terrible has happened to your camera/laptop. The only copies of your photographs are on Instagram.

2. You have...

Why start a digital archive?

Physical things can survive for millennia. The earliest humans painted on the walls of caves. Ancient Egyptians wrote on scrolls of papyrus. Your grandmother's favourite photographs sit on top of a wardrobe in an old shoebox. The fact that any of these still exists is just incredible!

Physical objects stored in perfect conditions, and in a safe place, can last for a very long time...