How to use shared family cloud storage

Getting everyone in your family on the same page saves time and makes it easier to stay connected and stay together—and it’s simpler than you think.

So where to begin? The cloud, of course!

First, you have to figure out what cloud provider to use—making sure it’s one that lets you share your account with multiple people. It’s also best to pick one that lets you collaborate across the popular apps everyone uses, like Word, Excel, etc.

Soon, you’ll be sharing files, photos, slideshows and more—and putting your family cloud storage to good use. Here are just a few examples of the family-friendly things you can do:

1. Sync and share.

Cloud storage makes it easy to collaborate on documents, files and more. Imagine sharing a spreadsheet via the cloud with your partner or roommate to keep tabs on rent or mortgage payments, utilities, and other household budgetary expenses. No need to send a hefty file. Just a simple link will do.

You can even create family groups or groups of any kind—giving you one-click sharing capabilities. Just build and name the group (e.g. Smith Family in Phoenix) and when you’re ready to share something, it’s as easy as 1-2-3. Just click on your group and share away. Not ready to share with the whole group? You can pick individuals, as well. You can also customize everyone’s level of access and edit permissions.

2. Build shareable photo and video albums.

The next time your family returns from an epic summer vacation, instead of emailing and/or texting photos and videos from the trip, put everything in a shared folder on the cloud. Now anyone in your group can access the footage or upload their own. You can add or delete captions, tags, and comments and control permission settings for others to do the same. With all these great memories at your fingertips, hand-picking which images you want to download to your local drive or fashion into a keepsake album has never been easier.

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3. Take the stress out of family events, like birthday parties, anniversaries & more.

Imaging being able to plan and budget for all those big family gatherings with a little help from everyone! If you’re planning a wedding, for example, you can create things like party budgets, seating arrangements, guest lists, music lists and more—then share them with your fiancé, parents, future in-laws, family members, friends and more. Best of all, you can get as much (or as little) real-time input as you choose on any or all of it.

4. Streamline family holiday mailings and more.

Lots of people prefer staying in touch with good, old-fashioned snail mail. That doesn’t mean the whole process needs to be old school. A spreadsheet shared in the cloud is an excellent way to manage mailing addresses for holiday cards, party invites and thank-you notes. When saved to the cloud, family and friends can add and edit entries in the shared spreadsheet and easily convert those addresses to mailing labels or envelopes.

5. Mark the kids’ milestones.

Forget the pencil marks on the wall! Imagine tracking your kids’ growth over time and then sharing it with family and friends. You can do that and more now that you can upload files to the cloud. Or maybe create a shareable photo album showcasing your baby’s first year with themes ranging from animals to nature scenes in a variety of layouts and frame styles. Now you can manage all your kids’ important milestones and share them with loved ones. You can even create things like medication and immunization trackers, as well as medical history forms, emergency contact lists and more—all instantly shareable with schools, babysitters, grandparents and other caretakers—giving you the ultimate peace of mind.

6. Protect and restore your most precious family files.

You know that sinking feeling of seeing your computer crash, knowing you haven’t backed it up? With cloud storage, you don’t have to worry anymore. Your cloud account will let synchronize files so even if your computer goes kaput at any time, rest assured you’ll have rock-solid backup of your important documents and family photos. Whew!

(HINT: For those extra sensitive documents like social security cards, mortgage papers, birth certificates, etc. make sure your cloud provider offers a digital high-security vault with added layers of protection, like multifactor authorization and more.)

Who says collaborating and sharing is just for the office? Now you can bring your entire family closer than ever before—thanks to the ability to share meaningful photos, files, vacation slideshows and more—effortlessly.