Archivists set a deadline to save tapes like yours. It was last year.

Somewhere in your house there’s a box. It contains video of your wedding. Baby’s first steps. Dad in that hideous sweater, waving at the camera.

Those tapes are dying in that box. Not someday. Now.

⏳ The machines died first

Magnetic tape was built to last 10 to 30 years, according to the people who studied it for a living. VHS peaked in the late ’80s and ’90s. Do the math on your shelf. The binder holding the tape’s magnetic particles pulls moisture out of the air and breaks down, so the tape sheds its own recording as it plays. Archivists call it “sticky shed.”

Here’s the twist nobody expects. A UNESCO-backed project set a rescue deadline of roughly 2025, and not because the tapes all fail at once. It’s because the last VCR ever manufactured rolled off the line in July 2016. Every working machine left is at least a decade old, and nobody’s making parts.

We are past the deadline. Be kind, rewind. While there’s still something left to rewind.

🛠️ Your DIY weekend

Want somebody else to preserve your videocassettes? iMemories lists $29.99 a tape. Legacybox bulk kits fall to roughly $9 to $18 each. Walgreens starts near $34.99. Easy, but it adds up fast if you have 40 tapes.

Doing it yourself is cheaper. Buy two things to work with your computer or laptop’s USB port and free storage.

1. A VCR. Copy this into the eBay search bar: “VCR VHS 4-head hi-fi tested working.” Those exact words matter. “Tested working” filters out the junk, and 4-head hi-fi models give you the best picture and sound. Expect $50 to $80. BTW, when you’re done with the VCR, you can sell it on eBay to someone else.

2. A capture device. The $110 Portta VHS-to-digital converter is my pick and includes the red, white and yellow cables. This cheaper option runs about $45. The difference? It needs a PC and software like QuickTime to record, while the Portta works by itself.

Take the colored cables from the back of the VCR into the capture box, USB into the computer, press play, press record. Transfers run in real time, so a two-hour tape takes two hours. Start the wedding tape, then go make dinner. Make it a weekend project with a kid who has never seen a tape rewind.

Save every file in two places, a hard drive and the cloud. I use and recommend Carbonite.* Do the irreplaceable ones first. The ’96 Olympics can wait.

Bad joke time: A man’s yelling at the TV, “Run, idiot, run!” His wife asks, “Watching a horror movie?” “No,” he says. “It’s our wedding tape.” So save it while you can.

📩 Send this to someone who has a closet shelf full of tapes “they’re going to make digital someday.”