The need for backups
From time to time, we read of a MakeCoder who loses a beloved project, usually while in development. Losing work, especially cherished work on which hours, days, sometimes months and years, have been spent is devastating. Writing code is a creative process, and losing a project that is literally one-of-a-kind can feel, almost without hyperbole, like the worst thing ever.
No piece of software is perfect. All of us here write programs, and we all know this. Yet, when someone else writes software, it seems easy to forget this fact.
No hardware is perfect, either. All computers and all components fail eventually.
Please, before something happens to your work, make backups. Make backups often. Keep them safe.
How to make backups in MakeCode
In a different thread where one of our friends describes work that they have lost, @richard shared a brief screen capture of saving all of your MakeCode projects with a few quick clicks.
If you have a lot of work saved in your browser, then this process can take a while. For example, on the browser where I am typing this post, I have more that two years’ worth of projects! My computer took 15 or 20 minutes to create the archive. Work or play on something else outside of MakeCode while your browser works on the backup. When the process is finished, your archive will be saved to your Downloads folder.
This is a simple, nearly effortless way to save all of your projects. Do this often.
For your important projects, or for your current projects that you are changing frequently, back them up separately and more frequently … like, hourly or daily. Use one of the download functions built into MakeCode (screenshot below; any of the three work) to keep “snapshots” of your project. If you are comfortable with GitHub, then you can use that, too. GitHub is great when you need to rollback changes … as long as you have been committing frequently. 
Backups: They’re not just for MakeCode!
This forum is focused on MakeCode, of course, but you certainly have other data on your device. Photos, school work, love letters … you probably have a lot of data on your device outside of MakeCode.
Backup that data too!
Where to store your backups
Files created by MakeCode are stored in your Downloads folder.
Do not leave your backups there!
If your device fails, then you lose not only all of your projects stored locally in MakeCode, but you lose all of your backups, too! Defeats the purpose, yes?
Cloud storage locations like Microsoft OneDrive and Google Drive are great for backups. So are USB drives. Whatever you choose, you really should keep your backups in multiple places. Why? Because … say it with me … no software and no hardware is perfect.
IT professionals who are responsible for institutional data typically keep three “generations” of backups … and one of those generations is always stored off site, away from the location where the data is generated. I used to work at the University of Michigan, which is in southeastern Michigan. Our offsite backup storage is kept in Iron Mountain, Michigan … literally on the other side of Lake Michigan in the Upper Peninsula!
Do you need to keep your backups 500 miles away or in another state? Probably not. 
Wherever you keep them, though, make sure that they are kept in safe locations.
Backup frequently
- Backup current projects, while working on them, at least daily if not hourly.
- Archive all of your projects at least monthly, if not weekly.
Similarly, for your other data, backup current files frequently, and do full backups less frequently … but still often.
Reminders
I plan to bump this thread at least once every six months. If nothing else, hopefully you all will have two archives of your work every year! 
Share!
Feel free to share your own backup strategies. If you know of others who would benefit from learning about why and how to backup data, then please share this thread with them!