Best practices for management of missionary pics/emails during mission

[ambldsorg]

For microSD cards, I've found them to be reliable if you're using a name brand (SanDisk, Samsung, Lexar) and have a U3 or Endurance rated card.

I believe that the claim being made wasn't that SD cards are unreliable, but that downloading from Google (or wherever they are stored) is unreliable.

[ambldsorg]

This has been so frustrating with no good solutions given.

Why not just have your missionary configure his device to save the images directly to the microSD card instead of to some service outside of his control? This seems like a "good solution" to me. This is exactly what was mentioned by an actual missionary previously:

What I personally do is make the settings save all my photos and files to my MicroSD card instead of internal storage, so all I have to do when I get home is take it out, put it in my computer, and copy it to Dropbox. I also back up to Google Photos, and I have a USB-C flash drive that I could also back up to if needed.

Now, saving directly to the microSD is not risk free... if he loses his device, and no backups of the microSD has been made, then he'll lose everything, so plan accordingly. But I offer the many frustrated posts in these forums about missionaries losing photos as evidence that neither is using "cloud" as storage for mission memories risk free.

[RyanZim]

Why not just have your missionary configure his device to save the images directly to the microSD card instead of to some service outside of his control? This seems like a "good solution" to me.

Q: Why not just have your missionary configure his device to save the images directly to the microSD card?

A: There's a few reasons
1. Not all missionary smartphones support internal microSD cards, so it can't be a standard solution. Samsung S-series phones from 2021 to present don't have a microSD slot. Missionaries that started in July 2023 to now were all given Samsung A2x phones that do support microSD, so it could become a standard solution soon.
2. MicroSD cards will only auto-save pictures and videos taken by Camera; other apps like Chrome downloads, Google Photos, Facebook, Messenger, and WhatsApp all save their items to Internal Storage. As a missionary technology specialist for over 3 years, I'd estimate that less than 25% of missionaries have the intuition, awareness, and skill to know that they need to move those in the My Files or Gallery apps.
3. A majority of Americans use iPhones, which do not support microSD cards or a traditional user-accessible filesystem, so using a microSD card as internal removable storage on a phone is foreign and unintuitive for most users.
4. MicroSD cards must be removed from the phone before factory resetting the phone to remove Church Protections (maas) at the end of their missions. If the microSD card is left inside, then all its data is wiped during the reset. I've met several dozen RMs that fell victim to this.
5. Making regular backups to a redundant USB drive or another microSD card to protect against phone theft is hard. The Samsung Smart Switch app is blocked on missionary devices, which would normally offer an intuitive UI to accomplish this and merge changes. Since it's unavailable, a missionary would either end up with multiple backups with duplicate data, or overwrite the previous backup.
6. Most importantly, there are some data types that cannot be saved to a microSD card from a missionary phone. Specifically, Google Keep Notes and Gmail messages can't be downloaded en masse. Keep would have to be copy/pasted to a Google Doc individually then downloaded as docx. Gmail messages would have to be printed as individual pdfs or individually forwarded to a personal email. Google Drive files can be downloaded individually. On a desktop, a missionary could use Takeout (blocked on missionary devices) for all of these.

I believe that the claim being made wasn't that SD cards are unreliable, but that downloading from Google (or wherever they are stored) is unreliable.

Got it. In that case, I'm understanding that julietluper has a missionary son who is currently out, and they're trying to save the son's pictures to a microSD card.
My experience has been that the following are reliable methods to save missionary photos and videos
-using a microSD card in the mission phone
-dumping the entire contents accessible in My Files to a USB drive or microSD card (usually at the end of a mission)
-setting up Google Photos Partner Share with auto-save enabled
-using Google Takeout from the missionary's account. Using it from another account that is shared on Drive Folders or unsaved Photos Albums with the missionary will yield the result julietluper is describing where Takeout only gives you links, not the original files

Further reading: https://universe.byu.edu/life/save-your ... ed-forever

[ambldsorg]

Gmail messages would have to be printed as individual pdfs or individually forwarded to a personal email.

Exporting as PDF or forwarding is inefficient and lossy (however, I won't deny that having a printed hard copy might actually be of value). It's possible to enable IMAP on the missionary.org email account after the mission which allows one to copy the entire body of email messages (en masse) without loss into a new account. I believe these are helpful resources to those who are willing to expend a little effort:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/th ... -and-gmail
https://support.google.com/a/answer/105694?hl=en

I have no pretentions that what I suggest should become "the standard", however, I do hope that it remains an option to those who can utilize it. And given that different people have different needs, I think it's wise to discuss options and let the "emptor" decide which is best.

[missionarypro1]

[/url]42354143 user_id=715318]

Gmail messages would have to be printed as individual pdfs or individually forwarded to a personal email.

Exporting as PDF or forwarding is inefficient and lossy. It's possible to enable IMAP on the missionary.org email account after the mission which allows one to copy the entire body of email messages without loss into a new account. I believe these are helpful resources to those who are willing to expend a little effort:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/th ... -and-gmail
https://support.google.com/a/answer/105694?hl=en

I have no pretentions that what I suggest should become "the standard", however, I do hope that it remains an option to those who can utilize it. And given that different people have different needs, I think it's wise to discuss options and let the "emptor" decide which is best.

Agreed that this is a valid method of saving missionary emails (I use Thunderbird and love it), though it does require access to a personal computer (not true of all RMs, especially internationally), and for best results it should stay on and connected to the internet for a couple weeks. This is since Gmail has limits on how many messages a third-party IMAP client like Thunderbird can receive in a rolling 24-hr period, which is currently around 150 messages or 1250 MB, whichever comes first. The average missionary I've assisted has about 3,000 messages equaling around 7 GB, so that would take 20 days with the message quota being the governing limit. The one benefit of Thunderbird is that it can use oauth for sign-in instead of the unique steps in the official guide. If you want a complete backup at full quality just for a local archive, Takeout is best which can be viewed in Thunderbird. https://takeout.google.com/settings/tak ... stom/gmail

The official missionary dept guidance can be found below (the site is accessible only to current or recently returned missionaries) that use an App Password (since missionary accounts use the Church's oauth) that becomes available after release to authenticate a POP3 connection to transfer to a personal Gmail. I've observed this method to transfer about 30 messages per minute with no rolling ceiling since it's between Gmail servers. However, this process is intimidating to most RMs and some steps fail if certain browser conditions are met, making it have the lowest self-serve success rate I've observed among the four main services (Drive, Gmail, Photos, Keep). This also has the benefit that the transfer happens in the cloud, so an individual with no personal computer could do this at a public desktop in a library or church and then leave it.
https://servicenow.churchofjesuschrist. ... =KB0105429