Tips for Organizing Your Digital Photos
January 16, 2025
In the age of digital photography we have all become photo hoarders. It’s so easy to take photos and so cheap to store them, so we have millions of photos! Unfortunately most of them live in a digital space that quickly becomes so cluttered that it is really hard to find the photos that you love.
This blog post is about giving you some helpful tips to tame the chaos so you can save what really matters and trash the rest. These tips will makes it easier to get your photos off your photo and into albums or onto your walls.
Stop trying to catch up and just start with today
When you are trying to organize your photos, it’s easy to want to start at the place you left off. But if you made your last photo album five years ago, digging through 5 years of photos is going to feel overwhelming and you’ll probably quit almost immediately. So just start with today. From this point on, use some of these tips to keep your photos organized. You can tackle that other stuff later, but start by establishing some good routines in the present.
Make a 2025 folder on your phone and put photos in there as you go
It’s a new year and the perfect time to build a new habit, so create a “2025” folder on your phone right now. After you take a photo you absolutely love, put it in that folder immediately. The goal here is to be able to pull up this folder at the end of the year and just put those photos into an album without sorting through anything else.
Be selective about what you put in your 2025 folder
If you want your 2025 Folder to save you time, you have to be pretty selective about your favorites. Here’s a helpful guideline for you. When I make a Year in the Life album for clients I usually put 80-120 photos in there. That gives a good sample of what the family did over the year without it being super overwhelming to look through. So if you plan on making an album at the end of the year, keep on an eye on the number of photos in your 2025 folder. If you get to the end of February and you already have 60 photos in there, you are NOT being selective enough. Adding 8-10 photos to your folder each month is perfect!
Pick your favorite and delete the rest
We often take multiple photos of the same thing as we work to get a photo of everyone looking at the camera or the action shot at just the right moment. This means we have tons of photos of the same thing. Right after you finish taking them, pick your favorite and delete the rest. This one is really hard for people because you’ll probably have multiple photos you like. But they really aren’t that different. Just pick one! Having all these variations on your phone will just be overwhelming later.
Make Individual Folders for Trips or Events
There are definitely events in our life that justify more photos, like trips or events. Don’t put those into your 2025 folder because that will fill up your folder super fast and make your organization system more confusing. Make a separate folder for these trips or special occasions. The goal is to be able to take all the photos in each folder and make a photo album without any additional culling or sorting. This is all about building routines so we can organize as we go. You can always combine folders later, but separating them out is a MUCH harder process.
Start a tradition that will force you to print your photos
We are most likely to print our photos when it is part of an established routine. A prime example of this is the holiday card. Tons of people who never print any other photos will make a holiday card because that is just part of their routine. If you can start other traditions that will force you to print photos it will help you stay on top of organizing and printing your photos. Here’s one tradition that I’ve found easy to maintain over the years- The Birthday Poster.
Lots of people make some sort of photo display for their kid’s first birthday. I just kept going with this idea and make a birthday poster for my kids every year. Each of my girls has a 16x20 “birthday poster frame” that hangs in our house year round. Then at their birthday, I replace the old photos with a new one. I just have to gather 8-12 photos each year and pop them into my template. It’s easy and manageable and my kids LOVE it! They look forward to seeing their new birthday poster each year. But more importantly, I love that I can stay on top of this routine without any extra stress. Plus when my girls turn 18 I can put all the birthday posters into an album and see their development over the years.
Life is crazy, I totally get it. So find easy ways to integrate organizing and printing your photos into your routine. That will make sure it actually happens.