We received a support query last night from one of our users and since their question has been asked quite frequently by other people, we thought it would be useful to post a short blog entry explaining this topic.
Here is an extract from their query:
“I see in the help section that if I delete data online, it is still stored in my hard drive. Would it still be available after the next sync? or would my hard drive data also be deleted when syncing?”
In short – yes, absolutely, 100%.
This particular user was wanting to trim back their online presence while still keeping a copy of all their content. The good news for them – and many others who ask us the same question – is that yes, everything you back up with SocialSafe will still be stored on your own hard drive, even if the originals on the networks are deleted. If you then go to sync with your online accounts, SocialSafe won’t delete anything from your hard drive if the source data is no longer available online.
However, you will find that friends, contacts, followers etc will move to the another part of your SocialSafe journal if you disconnect with them. For example, anyone you decided to de-friend on Facebook or stop following on Twitter will subsequently appear in the ‘Lost Friends’ or ‘No Longer Following’ sections once SocialSafe syncs your account and realises that you are no longer connected.
So to come back to the original question, whenever back up your data, it is safely stored on your own PC or Mac forever. This is really the whole reason why we created SocialSafe in the first place – as a backup for your photos if anything happened to your Facebook account. Obviously we’ve come a very long way since then, as SocialSafe now boasts extensive support for a comprehensive range of content from a variety of networks including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and more.
To bring together all the various parts of your online story safely in one place, download SocialSafe now.