Share

Share your video memories with friends and family over mobile, social media, or cloud storage. Edit multiple clips together for an in-person gathering.

Backup

Upload your clips to the cloud for safe keeping

Send

Send cloud-hosted links to clips via email

Message

Send clips via smartphone messaging services

Stream

Post clips privately to a streaming site like YouTube

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Share clips the way you want

Now it’s time for the payoff. In this section we’ll teach you how to take your newly exported clips and upload them to cloud storage for safe-keeping as well as be able to share with others.

Follow the video and steps below to learn how to upload your clips to services like Google Drive, and share with overs over email, mobile and more.

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What you'll need

In order to be able to share clips with friends and family, we need to upload the files to an online storage service. This is referred to as “cloud storage” and besides keeping our clips safe, will allow also us also to generate links to our clips that we can send to others.

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Cloud storage​

Cloud storage services like Google Drive allow you to save clips to the cloud so that they are safe if your computer has an unexpected event.

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Email account

Email will allow us to share links to individual clips or a folder containing multiple clips that are hosted in our cloud storage account.

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Smartphone

Smartphone messaging services like iMessage for iPhone or Google Messages for Android will allow us to send our clips directly to someone’s phone.

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YouTube account

A YouTube account will allow you to host private videos for friends and family to view comfortably on their phone or computer in an experience they are familiar with.

Select a cloud service

STEP 1: Choose a Cloud storage service

We first need to select a cloud storage service. There are both free and paid options. Free options can be utilized when backing up small amounts of clips. For those backing up a medium to large amount of clips may need to go with a paid service that offers more storage capacity.

Some options available:

  • Google Drive (15 GB Free + Paid Options) (Recommended)
  • iCloud (5 GB Free + Paid Options)
  • Microsoft OneDrive (5 GB Free, + Paid Options)

We recommend for most users to use Google Drive to store their video memories because most users already have Google accounts. Google also makes it easy to organize files.

*While you can choose any of the storage services above, the rest of this tutorial will provide instructions for users using Google Drive.

STEP 1 OUTCOMES

  • A free or paid cloud storage service account

Upload your files

The next step is to upload our files from our computer to our cloud service.

STEP 2: Create new folder in Google Drive

  • Go to Google Drive and log in.
  • Select My Drive from the left sidebar, click the + New button and select New Folder.
  • Rename this folder to Home Videos.

STEP 3: Select a few clips to start

  • On your computer, select 3-5 clips and drag and drop them into the Home Videos folder in Google Drive.
  • If the estimated upload time is less than 20 mins, we might recommend selecting more clips next time.
STEP 4: Upload the rest of your clips
  • Now that we know how long uploading 3-5 clips takes, work in batches to upload the rest of the clips you’ve captured.
  • Upload time will depend both on how large the clips are as well as your internet speed.
  • In general, aim for uploads to take no more than 1 hour to avoid the risk of your internet connection dropping and the upload failing.

STEP 2-4 OUTCOMES

  • "Home Videos" folder created in Google Drive
  • Initial clips successfully uploaded to the Home Videos folder as a test
  • Rest of captured clips uploaded

Share via email

Now that our video memories are all hosted in the cloud, we can share links to them with friends and family via email.

STEP 5: Share a single video link

  • In Google Drive, navigate to the Home Videos folder.
  • Find the first clip you would like to share, right-click the clip, and hover over the Share option and then in the menu that expands, click Share.
  • Under General Access, click Restricted and change it to Anyone with the Link.
  • Make sure that the word Viewer appears next to Anyone with the Link, then click the Copy Link button.
  • You can now paste this link into an email that you would like to send.
  • Repeat this step as necessary for more individual clips.

STEP 6: Share a link to the folder

If you are sharing clips with your family and would like them to access as you add new ones, you may choose to share a link to the whole folder.

  • In the Home Videos folder in Google Drive, click the down arrow next to Home Videos at the top of the page.
  • Hover over the Share option and click Share.
  • Change Restricted to Anyone with the link (ensuring the Viewer option appears next to this option).
  • Click the Copy Link button.
  • You now have a link to the whole folder that you can paste into an email.

Congrats! You are now ready to share a video memory with a friend or family member.

STEP 5-6 OUTCOMES

  • A shareable link to an individual video file
  • A shareable link to your video folder
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Share via phone

Another benefit of saving our videos to the cloud is that we have an easy way to download them to our smartphone. For this step we recommend that you are on Wifi and only send to others with the same phone as you (iOS to iOS or Android to Android).

STEP 7: Download the Google Drive mobile app

  • Download and install the Google Drive app from either the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.
  • Open the app, and navigate to the Home Videos folder.
  • Find the video that you would like to share and tap the 3 Dots icon next to the filename and then tap Download. The file will now be saved to your phone’s media library.

STEP 8: Send over iMessage or Google Messages to another user

  • Open the Messages app and navigate to a conversation with the person you would like to share a clip with.
  • (On iPhone) Press the + button at the bottom and select the Photos app.
  • (On Android) Tap the Gallery icon (Camera icon) to open the media gallery.
  • Find the video(s) you downloaded and tap to select, and then press the send button.

STEP 7-8 OUTCOMES

  • Videos are downloaded to your phone's media library
  • You have successfully sent a video to a user with the same type of phone

Share via stream

Provide friends and family with an easy way to watch your clips on their computer, phone, or smart TV. Upload to a streaming site like YouTube as a private video that no one can see except those you share with.

STEP 9: Sign into YouTube and upload video

  • Navigate to youtube.com on your computer and sign in.
  • Click the + Create button at the top of the screen and select the Upload Video option.
  • Drag and drop a video from your video clips folder on your computer into the uploader.

STEP 10: Fill out the video details

  • Fill out basic details for your video like the title and description, and then click the next button.
  • In the Video Elements section, skip adding related videos and subtitles. Click the next button. In the Checks section, no copyright issues should be found. Click the next button.

STEP 11: Select a visibility option

  • In the Visibility section select either the Private or Unlisted option.
  • Private offers the most protection and will only allow certain people you designate to view the link.
  • Unlisted hides from YouTube but allows anyone you send the link to, to view. 
  • Once you are done, you can click the Publish button.

STEP 12: Share the link with friends or family

  • When the video is done processing, click Your videos in the You section on the left navigation menu.
  • Hover over the video you would like to share and click the 3 dots icon and then Get shareable link.
  • You can now paste this link into an email or text message to share with others.

STEP 9-12 OUTCOMES

  • Video clip uploaded as an unlisted video to YouTube
  • Link for sharing with friends or family
  • Captured
  • Organized
  • Shared
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Congratulations! You have now successfully preserved your VHS memories for your family and future generations to come.

While you may have only just one completed one tape and have many more to go, you now have a framework and model end state for continuing over the coming days, weeks, months, or years, bookmark this site and come back to it to pick off where you left off.

Looking for more? Visit the Resources section to to find more help for processes found within these guides.

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