Yahoo briefcase shutting down

I was trying to find some old computer files yesterday. After I switched computers I couldn't quite recall what had happened to them. I currently back up my important files on my current PC by just e-mailing them to myself on Gmail as a zip archive.

But the old files didn't seem to be in any old backup zips on either Gmail or my older Yahoo e-mail. I was kind of resigned to them being lost but then I kind of had an inspiration. I checked over on my Yahoo Briefcase. And there they still were! I'm glad they weren't lost after all.

I downloaded the files (which were from 2001-2006) from my Yahoo briefcase to my hard drive. Then I made a nice zip archive and sent them to my Gmail account with a nice searchable subject line and body text. So now I should be able to find them in the future if I want to.

As it happens it was fortunate I was able to recover the files. It turns out that yahoo briefcase is shutting down. I only found out by pure accident by going to my briefcase account. Of course Yahoo hadn't bothered to tell me it was shutting it down soon. They would have been content to just delete all of my files that I was trusting Yahoo to store for me. So it was a lucky break I was able to recover my files.

I kind of liked Yahoo briefcase. It did have some moments of usefulness for me over the years. I'm a bit sad to see it go. So this is a word to the wise. If you're among the apparent few who used Yahoo briefcase then be careful to see if there's anything there you want to keep and get it backed up somewhere else soon.