When my wife and I got married, almost a decade ago, one of the things we did was scan our old baby photos to share in a slideshow during the reception. That was a real pain in the ass. First, we had to go through tons of piles of old, physical photos to find our own — we both have siblings so our families had big photo collections. But it also made me realize just how many memories are lost, waiting in boxes, or in albums, never to be seen or looked at again.

Like many others, I always vow to scan those old photos, digitizing them for more accessible viewing with today’s technology. The problem is that would take a long time if I were to do it myself. So, I keep putting it off. You can already see nearly a decade has passed from that original project until now. I’m not in a hurry. But eventually, it may be too late. Those photos could be lost to time, damaged and worn, damaged another way, like in a natural disaster — hurricanes and flooding are always a risk here in Florida — or any number of other scenarios could play out.

I’m definitely not the first one to notice this challenge, or the first to encounter it. One family experienced a life-altering tragedy before finally gathering their old photos to be digitized. In a moment of need they turned to ScanMyPhotos.com. The team took less than 48 hours to digitize and return nearly 5,000 photos, over 1,400 35mm slides, over 1,200 feet of 8mm reels and 11 VHS tapes. Pretty impressive. Two days. All done.

The 96% problem created by traditional photos and media

According to data from ScanMyPhotos, 96% of all pre-digital photos haven’t been seen since they were originally developed. They’re sitting in boxes, collecting dust, hopefully not moisture, maybe in a basement, attic, garage, or store room. That’s billions of old family photos and memories locked away, deteriorating slowly and lost to time.

Making it even worse, everyone today carries a camera in their pocket, a la smartphones, and they’re taking hundreds of photos a week, uploading them to cloud services or keeping them locally on their devices. Those photos are also taking up space, time, and attention, and if you’re anything like me, you’ll probably look at all those first before you go digging into old photos.

But those old photos offer the opportunity to return to beloved memories, especially if you review them as a family.

In another archival project ScanMyPhotos handled, they scanned over 347,000 photos to help preserve a Caribbean nation’s history, which was also transformed into a National Gallery exhibit in the Cayman Islands.

Digitize your old media with ScanMyPhotos

You can do something about it. Sooner is always better than later when it comes to old media like that. Even CDs and DVDs experience rot.

ScanMyPhotos will help you digitize all of your photos and media and in a much shorter span than if you did all yourself. Photos, negatives, slides, 8mm and 16mm reels, VHS, you name it. They also offer photo restoration services for old photos that are discolored, damaged or torn.

Prices vary, depending on the project, but they’re pretty darn reasonable. A 250 photo scanning package is just $50 for instance. There’s also an 1,800 picture box for $145 (archival quality at 300 dpi). They mail you the box, you fill it, send it off, and then you get the digitized photos back. Shipping is free and, of course, your original photos are returned when the project is all done.

The data and information for this story were originally shared by ScanMyPhotos.