My upload won't finish
A photo or video that fails or hangs is almost always a connection issue, not a lost memory. Here's how to get it through.
Try this first
- Switch to wifi if you're on cellular data. Big videos over a spotty phone connection are the number-one cause of stuck uploads.
- Upload one file at a time, especially videos. A batch of forty photos usually sails through; a batch of three long videos often doesn't.
- Keep the page open until the upload says it's done. Phones in particular like to put browser tabs to sleep when you switch apps.
- If it failed partway, just try again. A failed upload leaves nothing broken behind — starting over is safe.
- If one specific file keeps failing, try a different one to check whether it's the file or the connection.
What's going on
Uploading sends the whole original file — and family videos can be enormous. The upload has to hold a connection the entire way, so a weak signal, a sleeping tab, or a browser running out of patience shows up as a hang or a failure. Nothing about your archive is at risk; the file simply hasn't arrived yet.
Common phone formats all work: the photos and videos your phone takes (JPEG, HEIC, PNG, MP4, MOV, and friends), plus ordinary audio recordings. If you're uploading something unusual — a scan from a very old device, a file a relative converted twice — and it won't go, that's worth writing to us about.
For a very large video: plug the phone in, get on wifi, upload that one file, and leave the phone alone until it finishes. Boring, but it works nearly every time.
If that didn't work
Write to us at [email protected] and tell us roughly what the file is (a 20-minute video from a 2015 camcorder, say) and what you saw. A person will read it and help you get the memory in.
Still stuck? [email protected] — a person reads every message.