Seesaw end-of-year checklist for parents

Before the last day of school

• Ask your child's teacher when the Seesaw class will be archived
• Download within a week of school ending, just to be safe

If your child is changing schools or graduating, treat the last day as your deadline and download before it.

Download the archive

• Open app.seesaw.me in a browser — not the Seesaw app
• Sign in with the email connected to your child's account
• Click your name, then the gear icon, then Account Settings, then Download Journal Archives
• Click Download Journal next to this year's class
• Wait for the download to finish — it can take a few minutes
• Confirm the zip file is in your Downloads folder (should be at least a few MB)

Download older years too

The list shows all of your child's classes, not just this year.

• Scroll the list for previous years and download any you haven't saved
• If you have multiple children with Seesaw accounts, do this for each one

Move it somewhere safe

Downloads folders are not permanent storage.

• Create a folder called "Seesaw [Year]" in Google Drive, iCloud, or Documents
• Move the zip there before you close your browser
• Repeat for each zip you downloaded

What's in the zip

Each month is its own folder. Inside: original photos, videos, audio, and an HTML file per post with the teacher's captions and notes.

The honest truth: it's a data export, not a photo album. The captions are in the HTML files, not embedded in the photos. If you want the photos somewhere you'll actually look at them, with the captions still attached, that's what Little Archive does.

Common questions

When does Seesaw access actually close?

Archiving a class doesn't end download access. See do Seesaw photos expire? for the full picture on what happens when your child's class ends. The real cutoff is account deletion. Per Seesaw's own documentation, the platform will "gradually reduce the default retention period for inactive user accounts to 18 months." Seesaw doesn't specify whether they notify you before that happens, so the safest approach is to download before the school year ends.

My child is staying at the same school next year. Do I still need to do this?

Yes, for this year's class. When the teacher archives the class, the journal is locked. You can still download it after that, but downloading now is simpler than remembering to do it later.

What do I do with the zip file?

Move it somewhere permanent: Google Drive, iCloud, or a hard drive. If you want the photos in Google Photos with the teacher's captions included, Little Archive handles that automatically for $12.95 per journal.

How do I export from Seesaw if I've never done it?

The how to export from Seesaw guide walks through it step by step.