Cloud Storage for Construction Documentation: How Much Do You Actually Need?

One of the most common questions from contractors new to timelapse is storage: how much space does a full project generate, how long should footage be retained, and what does storage cost? The answers are more manageable than most people expect.

How Much Storage Timelapse Actually Uses

The math is straightforward. A 4MP JPEG image at high quality is approximately 2–4MB. At one image every 15 minutes over a 10-hour workday, you’re capturing 40 images per day. At 3MB average, that’s 120MB per day, or roughly 3.5GB per month, per camera.

For an 18-month project with one camera: approximately 63GB of raw image storage. At two images every 15 minutes (dual camera), approximately 126GB. By cloud storage standards in 2026, this is economical. Most cloud providers charge $1–3 per GB/month for standard storage, meaning a full project archive costs $60–200/month in raw storage cost.

Retention Periods: What Makes Sense

Storage retention decisions should be driven by your legal exposure window, not storage cost. Here’s a framework:

During Active Construction

Retain everything. Active projects have the highest dispute probability. Never delete footage from an active project.

Immediately Post-Completion (0–2 Years)

Retain all footage. The most likely window for warranty claims, punch list disputes, and neighbor/third-party claims is the 12–24 months immediately following completion.

Medium Term (2–5 Years)

Consider archiving to lower-cost cold storage (1/10th the cost of active storage) while maintaining access. Actual retrieval in this period is less common but still plausible for latent defect claims.

Long Term (5+ Years)

Most contractors delete footage after 7–10 years absent specific legal holds. Consult your construction attorney about your jurisdiction’s statute of limitations for latent defects before establishing any deletion policy.

Archival Formats and Portability

A key question when choosing a timelapse provider is data portability: what happens to your footage if you cancel the service or the provider shuts down?

BuildCam exports your complete frame archive in original JPEG format on request. You can download your entire project archive to local storage or transfer it to another cloud service at any time. This is important for long-term retention—you shouldn’t be dependent on any single vendor’s continued operation to access documentation you may need years later.

Organizing Multi-Project Archives

For contractors running multiple concurrent projects, archive organization matters. A logical folder structure prevents documentation from becoming useless due to retrieval difficulty:

/ProjectName_Address/
  /timelapse-frames/
    /2026-01/
    /2026-02/
  /compiled-videos/
    /weekly/
    /milestones/
  /documentation/
    /insurance/
    /disputes/
    /client-deliverables/

Store exported timelapse archives in this structure in a cloud service that’s decoupled from your timelapse platform (AWS S3, Google Cloud Storage, or even a consumer service like Backblaze B2 for its favorable pricing). This ensures you have an independent backup of all project documentation regardless of what happens with your timelapse subscription.

Video vs. Raw Frames: What to Archive

Archive both. Compiled timelapse videos are easy to share and review. Raw JPEG frames are what you need for legal purposes—they carry EXIF timestamp data, can be individually presented as evidence, and can be re-rendered into video with different parameters if needed. Deleting raw frames in favor of only keeping compiled video is false economy.