Imagine this: It’s Monday morning and you just sat down in your craft workspace to pump out orders for your Silhouette or Cricut small business. You turn on your computer and nothing happens – your computer is dead. No warning signs – just completely and entirely dead. You haul your computer off to the nearest computer repair shop and the technician tells you that it cannot be repaired or restored. You break down and purchase a brand new computer. All of your cut files are now gone – including the ones you use in your business.
If you don’t think that one will happen, what about all the online horror stories of updating to the newest version of software only to realize that all of your previously saved designs are gone? In a panic, you contact the company and they say they can’t restore them!
In either case, if you had backed up your files, you wouldn’t have an issue.
Let’s face it, good business owners have a backup plan. Today, I’m sharing four ways to back up your Silhouette or Cricut files.
4 Ways to Back Up Your Cut Files
- Buy an external drive. A lot of people store all of their cut files on an external hard drive. Personally, I don’t like this idea because external drives can fail just as a computer does.
- Purchase a service that backs up your files daily. There are many, many services that will scan and backup all your files to their servers. In the event that your computer fails, you just log in and download everything from their server. The downfall to this is that you have to pay a monthly subscription fee. (Examples: Carbonite, IDrive, or Crashplan.)
- Use Silhouette’s Cloud or store your files in Design Space. In my opinion, Silhouette Cloud has had some issues – and Design Space can be quite buggy. For that reason, I simply don’t store my designs in either.
- So, what do I do? I use a cloud storage program and store all of my cut files and font download folders (actually, I store everything from my computer in it). There’s another benefit to using a cloud, too: I can access all of my files from my phone, tablet, or any other computer. (Examples: Google Drive, iCloud, Dropbox.) Most of these start free, and then have a fee as you use more space.
No matter which method you choose, please choose one and regularly use it. I can’t tell you how many emails I receive where a Silhouette or Cricut seller has recently lost all their files and is seeking advice on how to get back up and running.
How do you backup your Silhouette or Cricut cut files? Let me know in the comments.
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Currently I use an external drive. But need to look into using a Cloud. I have a Dropbox but not sure I understand how it works.
Here’s a good overview of Dropbox: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/download-using-the-magic-pocket-a-dropbox-guide/
I was under the impression that the files purchased on the silhouette store could only be stored on your computer. I’ve had my computer crash before and Sihouette told me I could download bought purchases up to 3 times (ink using the one when first purchases). This is why I switched to the Cricut since its cloud based. I have a google drive, but how can I upload my purchases? Thanks so much for sharing. This may cause me to start using my silhouette again. 🙂
I just open the designs on a new mat in Silhouette Studio and save them to my computer. It’s much easier to have them saved in an outside cloud than to re-download.
I dont think you can save cricut files anywhere but their cloud. Very annoying. If you know of a way let me know. Hate the fact that my images are really not mine as I can not save them to my computer or other hard drive.
If you design them in an outside program you can save them elsewhere – but otherwise they save to Cricut’s cloud.
Does Carbonite automatically back up my Silhouette Studio files and my SCAL files?
I’m sorry, I’m not familiar with Carbonite.
I actually save things a couple of ways. I save all my files to an SD card, then back up that same SD card to drop box. I also have a few customers that I save all of their items to a thumb drive. They will ask me to to make the same items several times. This has saved me so many times.
Thanks for sharing!
Doesn’t this mean that you cannot share the file with anyone if you created something in PS and then saved it to cut in Cricut, you cannot share the cut file with anyone? I’m just finding this out, that MY created files are actually not saved in MY computer, but in the Cricut Cloud. Which is not okay with me!! I just upgraded to Maker and want to return and go with something else so I can have my own files and share with whomever I damn well please. Cricut is pretty much telling me that the file I spent days on in PS, them uploaded to cut cannot be shared with the people I decide to share with. Sorry for the rant, I’m not happy.
Correct. Everything is stored in Cricut’s cloud. Many creators use outside programs to create SVG’s, then open them in Design Space to cut them.