Sites close, paid plans lapse and old phones stop charging. The things you kept there do not have to go with them.
How much sand is left where your keepsakes live?
List your irreplaceable photos, writing, art and messages, and where each one lives. Each becomes an hourglass on a shelf: a place that has lasted longer tends to last longer, unless something says otherwise. The lifeboat seats the riskiest first. One run writes the rescue plan.
1 The keepsakes
Years: 12, or the year it started (2014), or ? if you do not know. Copies: 0, 1, 2 or none. Signals, comma-separated: closing notice, no export, export tool, lapsed plan, old phone or drive, app-only - or your own words.
2 The lifeboat
3 The hourglass shelf
- Red - little sand left
- Amber - running down
- Green - plenty of sand
- One bead per copy elsewhere
4 Write the rescue plan
The verdict follows a fixed rule: rescue now if a keepsake sits under a closing notice with no copy elsewhere, or at least half the shelf is red; steady if nothing is red; copy soon otherwise. The plan keeps the page's odds and order, names no product or brand, and adds nothing your shelf and notes do not say.
5 Kept shelves
How the sand is worked out
The Lindy rule of thumb says that for things that do not wear out by age - ideas, formats, institutions, websites - each year survived is a little evidence of more to come: a place that has lasted A years has about A/(A+5) odds of lasting 5 more (12 years gives about 71%, 3 years about 38%). Then the signals you list override it: a closing notice drops the odds to 0%, a lapsed plan halves them, and an ageing device (an old phone, a drive, a disc) caps them at 50%, because hardware wears out by use. The risk is what is left times a copy factor (no copy 1, one copy 0.4, two or more 0.15), plus 0.1 when there is no export. Red is 0.6 or more, amber 0.25 or more, green below. A red keepsake is rescued first; an app-only format that is not red is converted; amber gets a copy; green is left be. The lifeboat orders by risk. These numbers are a rough rule of thumb, shown as an estimate - not a forecast for any real place. Nothing here contacts the places you list; it is arithmetic on what you typed.