How to organize all my family photos?
In this day and age with the large quantity of phone photos we all take, it can be a daunting task to figure out “how do I organize my photos?” I am a photographer and mom of four for 9 years now and love taking tons of pictures. I’ve created an organized system that works really well and helps me manage all my photos easily. Below is my method for storing personal photos and my hope is that you can feel inspired to create a similar system that works well for your family.
– Subscribe to a virtual storage company
– Organize all photos by year
– Phone
– DSLR camera (by month)
Sign Up for a Cloud Service
I signed up for Dropbox many years ago to organize my family and business photos. This service and system has been a game changer to having easy access and finding all my files quickly. A bonus is, they have many different storage plans you can choose from. You can download the app to your phone and have access to all photos and files stored on your Dropbox account. After downloading the app, you can turn on syncing of your phone photos when connected to the internet. I LOVE this feature, it makes life so convenient!
Having an off-site storage option is really important for me to store some of the most important things like personal family photos, business files and photos and other documents. These items will be protected in case of a terrible accident like a flood or house fire.
Photo Organization Method
Next step is how do you organize the high volume of files? I like to start by organizing my photos by year. In addition, I’ve created folders from 15-20 years ago and added scanned older photos that I want to make sure I have for safe keeping. This method has made finding past photos pretty easy. My goal is to someday create annual year books, but I’m not quite there yet. So for now they will all be organized and ready for when I can tackle that project.
Each year has similar sub folders: camera phone, DSLR (organized by month inside this folder), Video (camera videos).
– Year Folder
– camera phone
– DSLR (by month inside this folder)
– Video
Lastly, at the beginning of each new year, I make sure all my phone photos have synced to Dropbox. Afterward, I will move all the photos from that year into the camera phone folder of that corresponding year.
Other Folder Ideas…
Below are a few more folder ideas that I have added over the years for safe keeping.
– Elementary school pictures
– Annual Christmas Cards
– Family history photographs
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I need this. I have pictures everywhere and I really want them off my phone!
I understand that feeling! Glad this was helpful!
Yup. I should probably get a cloud service. Photos can be like such a closet mess you can hide until you try to find something.
Yes! The quantity of files we deal with can create a real mess if we don’t stay on top of it!
This is such a great resource – and I one I definitely need! Thank you so much!
You’re welcome!
Great idea! Thanks so much for sharing, I need to be better about organizing all of our photos!
I know, it can be a task! Hopefully this was helpful as you get organized!