The Switch Kit

This kit is free. All of it.

No account with us. No card. No catch. The crew wrote it because regular people are getting squeezed by rented storage, and a checklist shouldn't cost anybody anything. Take your time — most families do this over two or three sittings, not one sitting.

The one rule that keeps you safe: your old copy is proven — counted and opened — in its new home before you delete anything anywhere. Copies proven first, deleting second, never the other way around.

Before you start

• Pick your landing place first. A hard drive you own, or a cloud account in your name. If you're choosing a drive, pick one at least twice as big as what you're moving.
• Plug in and use Wi-Fi. Big moves take a while. Power on, Wi-Fi on, phone charged.
• Keep your passwords yours. Every sign-in in this kit is done by you, on your own device. No checklist — ours included — should ever ask you to hand a password or a sign-in code to anybody.
• Start a simple list. On paper is fine: what you're moving, and where it's going. You'll thank yourself in Part 4.

Part 1 — Your photos and videos

• Open Google Takeout (takeout.google.com) and sign in — on your own device.
• Choose Google Photos only for this round. (Mail and files get their own rounds below — one thing at a time.)
• Export to your landing place: "Add to Drive" if your own cloud is your landing place, or download the export to your own hard drive. Big libraries can take Google hours, sometimes days, to prepare — that's normal.
• When it lands, open it and look. Open a handful of pictures — the oldest ones and the newest ones. If they open whole, they made the trip.
• On a Microsoft phone or computer, do the same from OneDrive: download your photos to your landing place, then open a handful to prove it.
• Write the counts on your list: roughly how many left, roughly how many arrived. Close enough counts that match = a clean move.

Part 2 — Your mail

• In Google Takeout, run a second export for Mail only, and land it in the same place as your photos.
• Tell your people where you'll be writing from. One short note from your old address: "I'm moving — here's my new address." Send it to the people who actually write you, not the whole internet.
• Change your address where it counts: your bank, your bills, your kids' school, your doctor. Do the money and the family first — the shopping sites can wait.
• Keep the old mailbox open and checked for a while. Mail keeps arriving at the old door long after you've moved.

Part 3 — Your files

• Google Drive: download your files (or add a Drive export in Takeout) and land them with the rest.
• Microsoft OneDrive: sign in, download your files to the same landing place, and open a few documents to prove they read right.
• Sort as you land: one folder for photos, one for mail, one for files, one for the papers that matter (taxes, house, family records). Plain names. You'll be the one reading this map later.

Part 4 — Prove it before you touch the old copy

• Counts match, old vs new — photos, and roughly for files.
• Spot-open: the oldest picture, the newest picture, one video, one important paper.
• Your list says where everything lives now, in words somebody else in your family could follow.
• Wait 30 days before deleting anything from Google or Microsoft. Use your new home for a month. If nothing's missing, then — and only then — closing the old copies is your call.

Part 5 — Stay free of the squeeze

• Point your phone's photo backup at your place, not the rented one — so new pictures land home from day one.
• Once a year, re-run Part 4's spot-check. Ten minutes a year is the whole rent on a house you own.