My Guide to Organizing Pictures Without Losing Your Mind: Part Two: Getting Started

If you haven’t already take a look at my introduction post.

And now, the real work begins.

According to my introduction post, the first real thing you should do is Upload your photos but after I began writing that, I realized if you are looking for a way to organize your photos, your photos probably aren’t organized.

And that’s where you should start. And then move on to the uploading process.

Some people have all their photos on their phone while others probably have it spread out over many devices. Some on their phone, computer, flash drives.

While I’m an advocate of making things as simple as possible and most of your pictures are probably on your phone, I think this type of work is best suited for a computer. The bigger screen, the full keyboard, the ability to select multiple files with a touch of a button, and the ease of which you can organize the content.

So let’s gets started.

Get All Your Photos in the Same Place

This is a lot easier said than done. When I first started really organizing my pictures I had them everywhere. In old computers, in flash drives, on my phone, on old phones, on my new computer, on CDs. It was a mess. I think it’s best to get this all done at once.

Everywhere you could have pictures, add it to the computer. There is nothing I hate more than having to go back and add pictures I forgot about. Once it’s organized it’s not that bad, but before that? It’s a mess.

Put all the pictures into the same folder. This lets you see if you have any duplicates that way you can delete them now. If some of your photos are already organized a different way, leave them inside the folder they are in but move that folder to the large folder.

Figure Out How You Want to Organize First

I find the simplest way to organize is by decades, then years, then months.

I have Pre2000, 2000, 2010, 2020

Then each one is separated by years (except Pre2000 because I don’t have enough pictures in that time period for it to make sense) so inside 2010 is 2010-2019.

Within each of those folders is a month but not just the name because that could get confusing when you are looking in your search bar.

I add the month number, the name of the month, and the year. So January 2020 is 01.Jan.2020

Delete, delete, DELETE

I love pictures so I know how hard it is for some to press that button but I have learned that it’s so much better in the long run. Delete duplicates, delete 200 photos of your child’s first birthday, delete bad lighting, delete selfies taken by your three-year-old.

Delete everything you don’t need.

I read somewhere delete all the pictures you would want to put in a photo album but I think that’s a little extreme. I have a couple of pictures I LOVE but wouldn’t want to share with the world. Bath photos, a little too much skin breastfeeding photos, pictures of me in a towel, pictures in the delivery room. So I wouldn’t go that far.

But delete the pictures you don’t love. You won’t miss them.

Start Adding The Pictures to Your Folders

Once you figure out how you are going to organize, add the pictures to the corresponding folder. I was lucky in this department, almost all my cameras had the correct time and date and that was saved onto each picture. I had a few outliers but I found them pretty easily.

If yours is not like this, I would recommend just putting it in the year you think it’s from.

Some time when I don’t know, or if someone has sent me a photo to my email (the date is the date I downloaded it instead of the date taken) I add an extra folder I call Date Unknown and keep those photos there. Although to be honest I usually will ask or do some investigating because I hate having that extra folder. It ruins my clean organization feel.

Backup

Now put them somewhere you won’t lose them. I have a copy on my computer of all my pictures. I have them in Google photos, and I have them on two different flash drives. Just in case.

You might not want to go that overboard but do save them somewhere besides your computer.

Crashes do happen.

Now Let’s Never Do That Again –Stay Organized

Congratulations! Your pictures are organized! Now you never have to worry about it again!

Wrong.

Picture organization is an ongoing activity so unless you want to do the above process all over again, it’s best to keep up to date.

Next week I’ll go over how I keep organizing my photos so I never have to relive that nightmare of first time organization.

Until then, how have you been organizing your pictures?