Best way to organise photos
Is there a best way to organise photos? Normally, I argue there is no best way to organise anything, but in this case, I think there is "a best way".
The best way to organise photos is to sort them by year, event, and some regular groupings. Let’s explore this idea further in the post below.
This is a long page, so here is the table of contents:
1. Types of photos
2. Paper-based photos
3. Decluttering your photos
4. Finding photos and using file names
5. How to organise digital photos — step by step
6. Sharing and printing your photos
7. If you have years of photos to sort
1. Types of photos
Most of us have two types of photos: paper-based and digital.
Our lives follow a sequential order, which allows us to simply follow it whilst you organise your photos. I suggest that, whether it is paper-based or electronic, you start with the years and follow this system.
Year
Who is in your family during this period – set up a folder for each person
A close family folder (those in your household)
A broad family folder (parents – parents-in-law), etc.
Friends
Holidays or weekends away; maybe name the folder with the name and year of your holiday
Any significant life events / the birth of a child / a marriage/trip of a lifetime etc.
You simply repeat this system every year; the people in your life will change over time, but the sequential, year-by-year structure won't. If your children don’t live with you anymore, maybe they won’t need their own folder. Maybe you want to add a folder for a grandchild or a new pet.
Below are some images of the best way to organise photos on the computer.
2. Paper-based photos
Most of the people my age and older still remember printed photos and have a box or ten…with these printed photos. This can be a great organising project to do in winter.
For the best way to organise paper–based photos, it works like many other organising projects: set up a workstation.
Ask yourself:
• What is roughly the year or topic of this photo? – write it on a Post-it and place it next to the photo
• Is it good enough to keep? If not, toss it
• Is this the main grouping (Parent category) or a child grouping? I explain this in the article on how to organise paperwork.
When you have good groups and sub-groupings of photos you want to keep, place them in envelopes or photo storage solutions. Use some labelling to explain what is in each envelope or box.
3. Decluttering your photos
One of the best things you can do to organise your photos is to declutter a lot of them. If you have 20 photos of the same topic pick the two nicest, when you look back at this you want to only see the best of the best to get that memory back. Scarcity of images and being frugal with your photos or film rolls hasn’t been the case since our great-grandparents were alive.
4. Finding photos and using file names
If all you do is place photos in folders, you are more than halfway there. If, however, you need specific photos for work, study, or other reasons, you might want to add file names.
Using file names
I like to be fast and furious with this. If I have 20 photos related to Christmas 2012, I select them all and name them Christmas_2012; the system automatically adds a number after them. If I want to find, for example, declutter photos for my website, I will use that as the file name and search term when I need it. A range of photos that show decluttering will come up. If I need to crop or set it to a certain size, I will do that and add it to the file name (saving myself from doing it again in the future).
Say my picture is called declutter_living_room; I would rename it to: declutter_living_room_500by500. Or a photo of me the picture is called Sabine I can change this to Sabine_cropped_red_top so when I need to find something specific I can find it with a simple computer search.
5. How to organise digital photos - step by step
Digital photos have been a fantastic new technology. However, with every new technological advantage, we eventually discover the downside of this fantastic new phenomenon.
The negatives for digital photography are clearly overwhelming - it is so easy to create hundreds of snaps from one event. Now most of us have to learn how to organise our digital photos, as well as new software programs that go with them. In the text above, I explain what I think is the best way to organise photos. Below, I’ll give you an easy step-by-step guide to organising your photos.
The step-by-step method for organising digital photos
Of course, people approach this big job in different ways, but here are the steps I follow when I organise my photos.
1. Download pictures
2. Put in one temporary folder (I like to call it: ‘TO SORT’)
3. Delete all bad / no significant photos
4. Do a quick sort on categories – meaning you move photos into subfolders for the year
5. Sort again and work on photos in more detail (Crop, edit, and Name)
1. How to organise digital photos - Download your pictures and back them up
I find this by far the most annoying job, as pictures show up in random folders and you need to download from several sources (digital cameras, iPhones, iPads, etc.) to get them all.
To make it easier, a card reader is a fantastic tool. A $10 card reader can usually read the memory card from a range of cameras.
For mobile phones, you usually need a cable to connect to your PC.
Alternatively, you can link Dropbox from your phone to your computer. It is fiddly to set up, but once done, you only have to click a few buttons on the phone and your images are backed up on your computer (and in the cloud).
Note: On this page, I mainly talk about how to organise digital photos. If you are not familiar with downloading them to your computer, ask a friend or relative, or find a good YouTube video to help (keep in mind the make and model of your camera, phone, and computer, as they all download slightly differently).
2. Put all images in the "To Sort" folder
No matter how you download your digital photos, make sure they all end up in one folder (I suggest the "TO SORT" folder) so at least your photos are organised in one main folder. To learn more about digital folders and folder structure, read this page.
I organise my digital photos on my computer by year and topic.
I have the following files;
Digital photos > Year > Topic. The topic, in this case, is a ‘to sort‘ folder.
You can use another system, say, Digital photos > Topic > Year.
The difference between these systems is how you think when retrieving photos. To find a picture of my daughter, I first ask myself if I want a current or older picture. If I want a picture from 2012, my folders are as follows:
Digital photo’s > 2012 > my daughter (Ayesha)
If I thought differently but still wanted a picture of my daughter from 2012, I might create folders like this: Digital photos> Name Daughter (Ayesha) > 2012
If you would like to learn more about this concept, it is called "mother" and "child" categories in organisation speak
3. Use the Delete key!
Use a program that allows you to quickly view and delete pictures. Like Windows Photo Viewer. Go through your pictures quickly, deleting all the bad, blurry, unflattering, or 50-times-repeated pictures. Keep only quality shots and special memories.
4. Do a quick sort on categories
In your ‘to sort’ file, you now have only the good-quality pictures you want to keep. They will mostly have a similar theme or topic; create a folder for each theme. Examples include folders for your children, a folder for Christmas or a birthday celebration, or the special holiday you went on.
Once you set up your more specific folders, go through all pictures and drag them to their ‘homes’. These will be folders with names that make sense to you and will be easy to find back when you are after a particular photo in future.
To organise your digital photos, ask yourself with every picture: ‘If I want to find it back in a year from now, what will I think?’ Create folders that repeat that thought pattern as described above and go through until all your pictures are sorted and the "TO SORT" folder is empty.
Another example from my own photo organising system is say I am looking for a Christmas picture from 2008. I can find it as follows: Digital photos -> Photos overall sorted in category* -> 2008 -> Christmas
But you can also use: Digital photos -> Christmas -> 2008
* Once photos are older than 2 years, I file them in a folder called ‘Photos overall sorted in category ’; this keeps my first folder 'Digital photos' less cluttered.
New to this level of Organising?
I explain how to save your files in detail in my book: “How to Organise your Home and Paperwork”.
5. Sort again and work on photos in more detail
Once you have emptied the "TO SORT" folder, it is time to go through all the pictures again. But this time, we will go through them in more detail. Make sure within the folder that you are happy with the snaps; crop, edit, and work with the photos if you want to / need to. You should be left with organised and good-quality photos.
6. Sharing and printing your photos
Decide whether you want to send these photos on or share them in any other form; if so, you might want to duplicate some photos and put them in different folders.
Before getting my photos printed, I create a "TO PRINT" folder on my computer (or USB) so I can print all the photos I want in one clean sweep. There are a variety of printing options these days, like bringing them to the shop (on a USB) or ordering straight from the net. Either way, having the photos you want printed pre-sorted will save you time and effort.
7. If you have years of photos to sort
This is not the easiest organising project.
Years of photo sorting can become a massive mountain to climb. If you are in that situation, take, say, 150 pictures per full session and go through the above steps. Or work on photos for an hour per session. This breaks the project down into smaller achievable goals. You can then tell yourself you still need to sort through 5000 pictures, but at least 300 pictures are sorted.
With every little goal you achieve, pat yourself on the back and move on to the next “pile of digital photos”. Once you sort through your pictures each year and/or after each event, it becomes manageable, and the joy of having organised photos is immense!
These steps are most likely not done in one sitting; this depends on the number of photos you have. If you have years of digital photos to go through, go slow and easy. A commitment of, say, three hours a week will keep you moving forward.
Regular digital photo sorting time is recommended it is one of these great winter organising projects, set a time and date and stick to this.
It is also recommended to organise your photos straight after a holiday, or a big event like a wedding, and an added bonus is that you get to enjoy all the newly created memories this time around.
Can you make organising photos any easier?
Well maybe. One quick way to turn snaps into booklets is to use an app. In this video, I show you an example.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Sort them chronologically by year, then group by event or topic within each year — holidays, family, friends. This mirrors how memory naturally works and makes photos far easier to find later, whether they're printed or digital.
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Break it into small sessions rather than tackling it all at once — 150 photos or one hour per sitting is manageable. Start with a 'TO SORT' folder, delete anything low quality, then sort what remains into year and topic folders.
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No — decluttering is part of good photo organisation. If you have 20 near-identical shots, keep the best two or three. Fewer, better photos make it easier to relive the memory when you look back, rather than scrolling through duplicates.
