How To Rip All Your Photos and Documents Off the Cloud

The cloud is this magical place where files never die. We put our photos, our videos, our entire lives into this digital land in the hopes that they'll live on forever, untouched by fire or folly or other catastrophic acts. It's convenient, and it gives us the peace of mind that our data is safe. But have you ever actually tried to pull your files back down from the cloud? It isn't fun, and in some cases, it's downright impossible.
 
The cloud, you see, isn't a two way street. It's great for saving, and great for sharing, but sucks at returning what's yours. This doesn't sit well with everyone of course; Flickr, Twitter and even Google Docs are, in essence, keeping your data in digital limbo, and getting it back is no easy feat. Luckily, some enterprising developers know your pain. If you spend as much time as we do uploading your life online, there should be a way to recover that data too. And now there is. 

We've compiled a list of the best software and services to bring the cloud down to you, and keep your digital footprint under control. Don't let the cloud take your files hostage!
 

Liberate your photos: Flickr and Picasa  

Image sharing sites like Flickr are undoubtedly the easiest way to share your photos online. With Pro accounts offering near limitless storage possibilities, it only makes sense that some would choose to use Flickr as a reliable backup solution. After all, there's little chance of harm should disaster strike, and it's trivial to pull your photos back in a pinch.

At least, that's what you'd think. In Flickr's case, recovering that album or collection from your account is nowhere near as simple as the original upload process. Instead, you're required to manually comb through each photo, and download the original — a time consuming process no doubt frustrating for those with thousands of pictures. Thankfully, it's no longer the only way.

FlickrEdit is a free, cross-platform Java application that can help you regain control of your account. The interface is divided by sets, favourites, all photos and even contacts, allowing you to view the uploads of other users too. Operation is easy enough, allowing you to make individual selections or download entire sets, without having to suffer through the manual method. And if you'd like, you can even use the software in reverse, as an alternative upload app for all your latest pictures.

Meanwhile, a unique option for Windows users is Flickr Drive. This application harnesses the Flickr API, allowing access to your photos, "as if they were located on your own hard-drive." Folders house your groups and sets, EXIF data can be revealed with a right click, and there's even thumbnail support so you can browse without opening. And just like FlickrEdit, there's uploading capabilities here too — simply drag and drop to the set of your choice, and let Flickr Drive handle the rest.

But Flickr isn't the only online service to get some file management love. Google's Picasa desktop app can actually import and download your Picasa web albums, placing the originals alongside your locally stored photos. The process is dead simple, and one of the best for storage in the cloud.
 

Amateur authors: Google Docs

If you're like us, you're one of the millions of people using Google Docs. The online word processor, spreadsheet and presentation apps are great for cross-platform work, and accessible on almost any internet-enabled device. But the more docs you save, the harder they are to recover. Only one file can be downloaded at a time, and for the prolific wordsmiths among you, storing your works of art locally might not be so simple.

To dump the contents of your Google Docs account, you're going to need a little something called GDocBackup. The .NET application runs on Windows, though the Mono framework is said to provide functionality on Mac and Linux too (though, our test Mac would run the program once, and only once, something not even a reinstall would fix). Features are basic, but really, what more do you need? Input your username and password, and GDocBackup will pull all your Captain Kirk fan fiction down from the cloud to be archived however you wish.

Wordpress, Tumblr and all that's fit to Tweet

We blog on phones and laptops and even other people's laptops, but never in one consistent place. In fact, everything we blog is often done right on the internet itself, in a rich text editor or similar form, without even touching the hard drive. Our blogs live entirely in the cloud, from start to finish, and with no rough drafts or backups to speak of. 

If you're running your own blog or site, it's smart to make a local copy. You never know when a database hack or password slip-up could expose your archived content, and even delete your work in the process. It's just another example of how the cloud isn't as infallible as you think, but only as secure as the person who uses it.

Luckily, Wordpress has a built-in method with which to backup your blog, and take all those important writings with you. If you hit Tools from your Dashboard, and click 'Export', you can save a record of your blog in XML format. If needed, you can even limit the output to a specific author. This is a great backup method should disaster strike, and is even useful for less catastrophic purposes — say, migrating to a new server. 

However, there are a few caveats. Only the contents of your posts are saved, with things like comments and user data being left behind. Those are stored elsewhere in your Wordpress install, and thus, need to be backed up separately. Luckily, there's a plugin called WP-DB-Backup to capture all that extra content, and ensure your backup is as comprehensive as possible. This method not only backs up your posts, but other core Wordpress tables as well, ensuring that your entire database is saved to disk.

Tumblr users will also find their blogs particularly simple to pull from the cloud. In fact, tumble blogging service even provides its own official software for doing just that. Text, audio and photos are all downloaded to a folder on your hard drive, and all future backups simply add whats missing. But now for the kicker — it's Mac-only, for now at least. Windows user will have to make do with the Tumble-log Backup Jammy, a web-app that dumps the contents of your Tumblr — or anyone else's, for that matter — into a giant HTML file. It's not as elegant, but it's still something should your blog ever meet its unfortunate demise.

And then there's Twitter. The reason for backing up one's irreverent or informative tweets might not seem to make much sense, but like any blogging service, there's a great deal of information that could be useful to save. Luckily, services like TweetBackup and Tweetake can both export your Twitter histories, and much of the data associated with them. TweetBackup will deliver your timeline in plaintext or HTML form, while Tweetake will export everything from followers to friends and even direct messages in a handy CSV format. It might look like a mess, but at least it's a backup, and intrepid code monkeys can no doubt parse the output into something a lot nicer.

All of these tools should achieve one simple goal, and that's taking the cloud and making it local. After all, there's no point in moving your data unless you can get it back, and it's that sort of transparency that will drive the web's future. If you've got some app suggestions of your own, be sure to let us know!