Simple Tips and Tricks for Organizing Photos

Are you behind on organizing your family’s photos? You’re in good company!  With the rise in technology and the ease and accessibility of cameras on our smartphones, the sheer number of photos is overwhelming. So how do you come up for air in the sea of photos? Luckily, we do have some ideas and resources for you.

First, start with today, really. Take a look at your photos just from today and delete ones that don’t make the cut. Make this a habit while you’re relaxing in the evenings, so you only keep your best photos to organize. Depending on your time, patience and volume of pictures, continue deleting any photos you don’t wish to keep. Then if you have Amazon Prime, you can back them up using their photo app on your phone. Then a never-ending project for me is to catch up on years past by going back and weeding out my photo folders on my computer. If you have non-digital photos you’d like to digitize and be able to organize too, check out a service like LegacyBox.com.

Second, decide how and why you would like to organize your photos. Do you have a computer and hard drive you’d like to copy and paste them to?  Do you want to organize them in the cloud?  Do you want to make prints or print photo books? Or maybe you would just like to organize them better right on your phone.

Personally, I am old school and like to put them in folders on my computer and also back them up on an external hard drive. Ideally, I periodically plug my phone into my computer and copy and paste all my photos into folders. As for my folder system, I like to keep it as simple as possible. I create a new folder for each year on my PC and add monthly folders labeled with numbers first so they stay in order, for example “5 May 2020.” That method makes it easy to find certain photos when your kids start to need actual printed photos for school projects. Then I weed through those photos and delete and maybe even edit some. Sometimes I even make subfolders for birthday parties or for photos I want to print out. 

Photographer and mother of three Terri Demarest says, “I have a folder for each season/year. So ‘fall 2019’ is an example of one folder’s title. In that, I have subfolders if we go on a special vacation (such as one for ‘Arizona’), and then the kids’ yearly photos get a folder (‘Everett 6YO’). The rest of the photos are in the main folder ‘fall 2019.’ I also put videos in a separate folder there too and then all phone pics are in a folder called ‘phone pics,’ which are both still subfolders for the main year/season.” Demarest says a seasonal reminder is helpful to remember to order new prints and back up her photos.

Jennifer Schmidt, mother of two, has yet another technique to organize her family’s photos. “Every event is in its own folder within the computer’s photos folder and labeled date first (year, month, day), such as ‘2014.06.13’ plus the name of the event. As you scroll down, the folders become more recent. Then each of my kids has their own separate folder within the main photos folder. Then I take photos that just my daughter, Haddie, is in and put them in subfolders in her folder, even if the photos are from the same thing like a trip to the zoo. The photos of my son, Mason, go in his separate folder, and Haddie's go in hers. Then I have a whole other folder in the ‘photos’ folder for that event that have photos of both of them together. I do split photos up from the same event, which I'm sure would drive some people crazy, but I like my system and I've done it since before the kids were bor,n so it's easy to keep up with. My thought process is, if I ever need pictures of just Mason or just Haddie, it'll be easy to find them!”

That leads to the discussion of prints and the importance of displaying family photos in your home. An article on DesignAglow.com showcases the importance of displaying family photos. “It lets children learn who they are and where they fit,” says Judy Weiser. a psychologist, art therapist and author based in Vancouver. “They learn their genealogy and the the uniqueness of their own family and its story. When a child sees a family portrait with them included in the photograph they say to themselves, ‘These people have me as part of what they are, that’s why I belong here. This is where I come from.’”

But getting behind on actually printing physical copies of photos happens so easily. It’s just another line item on the to-do list, right?  But if we would just sit down and take 10 minutes, we would be able to check that box and feel accomplished. Especially if our photos were already organized!  Many businesses offer photo printing services with varying levels of quality, price and accessibility, such as CVS, Walgreens, Shutterfly.com and Mpix.com. So get those frames updated with fresh prints and see the delight on your family’s faces when you relive special memories together. Small photo books can be a fun gift for your children in stockings or  Easter baskets or just because. They make nice gifts for grandparents and other family members too. Services like Chatbooks.com or subscriptions like GrooveBooks.com help you make small photo books from your phone and mail them right to your door

Personally, I made my children a baby book of each one’s first year using Shutterfly and then liked my neighbor’s idea of printing a family yearbook each year. I used Shutterfly for my first few and now am frustratingly years behind. I simply go in chronological order, giving each month a different background color. These books are such treasures to look back on the life you are building and living with your family. Demarest also makes a family yearbook using Artifact Uprising.

If you know me, you know I love a good podcast episode. An exceptional one about photo organizing is episode 41 on Laura Tremaine’s 10 Things to Tell You with guest Miss Freddy. This was my introduction to MissFreddy.com, and she is a wealth of knowledge and services available to help you get a handle on your photo organization.

So keep taking those photos and know that you can have a plan of action to maintain some order with them. Our children’s lives are incredibly well documented, and it really does bring me so much joy to look back on those moments both big and small. The key is to find a way that makes sense to you and that you will be able to maintain. I feel like this ties in with personality types a lot—but that’s an article for another day

Stephanie Loux is the mamarazzi to Layla, 9 ½, Mason, 8, and Slade, 5, who dabbles in photography and is grateful for her handy phone to capture her children’s childhood. She may have also made an entire photo book of her golden retriever, Thor, too.