5 Tips for Organizing and Enjoying your Photos in the Age of Digital Clutter

There’s a spring in your step. The anticipation grows with each step you take towards the door.

Ding-dong and a woosh of chilled air as the automatic doors part. Your eyes immediately go to the back of the store and lock on to the One-Hour Photo sign, then your feet take you there on their own accord because your mind is occupied with this one question: What surprises will I find in that envelope?

Cell phones are amazing and convenient for capturing precious moments, but do you kind of miss the anticipation and surprise of getting those disposable cameras from the 90s and early aughts developed? Maybe half the photos would be blurry, but you were left with something that you could hold in your hand and felt real, not a hard drive full of images that are overwhelming to dig through (and so don’t get looked at nearly as much as your grandma’s box of polaroids did).

As much as I miss that experience, cell phones and digital cameras are here to stay. Instead of being grumpy old people who automatically think the “good old days” are better, let’s be intentional about enjoying this new way of capturing memories in a way that works. Here are 5 tips for organizing and ENJOYING (read: actually looking at) your photos in an age of digital clutter.

Tip #1: I’m begging you, don’t use social media as your only photo storage!

If you only use Facebook or Instagram as your photo storage, your memories are vulnerable. Setting aside the separate issue of privacy and the fact that we’re granting them usage of our photos, they also have no obligation to you to keep your photos safe. If your account is hacked or the platform goes down in the future because it was taken over by white supremacists and incels (I know, so far-fetched), they will not feel bad that your photos were lost. On top of that, any photo you share on Facebook or Instagram is compressed and reduced in quality. If you decide to print one of these photos in the future (and I hope you do), it won’t look that great.

Tip #2: Take plenty of photos and then cull your photos daily (or close to it).

When photos were harder to take because we needed to use a dedicated camera and buy film, each press of the shutter required some thought. Now, I might see a funny mistranslation of English and send it to my husband because I’m bored on the MRT. This isn’t a bad thing—we should take advantage of the fact that we can capture more of the little daily moments that make up a life. But what happens when we have a tsunami of images sitting on our phones? We feel too overwhelmed to look through them. The photo of our baby’s first bite of avocado is lost among all the other crap, or maybe we have 10 nearly identical photos of the avocado being smeared across the table when 1 or 2 would have sufficed. I recommend that you delete any boring or superfluous photos at the end of each day so that every time you open your photo app you’re rewarded with the stuff you actually want to see.

Tip #3: Store your photos in iCloud or Google Photos and sync it with an app like Timehop.

Being able to take lots of photos only does us any good if we actually return to the photos and see them again. It’s nice that Facebook Memories automatically shows us photos from the same day throughout the years, but remember, you shouldn’t only be storing your photos on Facebook! I prefer to have the Timehop app connected to my Google Photos. My kids enjoy the nightly ritual of seeing themselves on that very day 2 years ago, 5 years ago, 10 years ago or however far back I was photographing them.

Tip #4: Keep your photos at least somewhat organized and backed up.

Listen, I get that going so far as to tag each one of your photos with keywords such as ice cream and bathtime so that you’ll be able to easily search for them later is a bit much. I’m a professional photographer and I don’t even do that, even though I know I should. To be honest, I’m hoping that eventually, AI gets good enough for me to be able to use keywords to search for things even though I’ve never bothered to use tags. However, don’t let your photos just become an overgrown jungle on your hard drive that you have to hack through with a machete every time you want to find something. Start by saving fewer photos in the first place (see tip 2). For the photos that are worthy of saving, create a folder for each year and a subfolder for each month on your hard drive. Make sure your photos are backed up in at least (at least!!!) one physical location (your computer, external hard drive) and one cloud location that isn’t social media.

Tip #5: Print some of your photos!

We’re able to take a lot of photos now and printing all of them would be impossible, but I think we lose something if we don’t have any photos to hold in our hands. Many people who experienced the recent Los Angeles fires have said that photos were among the top possessions that they wanted to save. While I found it fascinating that printed photos ended up being the top priority for many people, this situation also made me realize that a digital archive is important as well—so I’m not here to make you feel guilty about only having digital photos and not printing enough! Digital and printed photos are vulnerable in different ways, so it’s important to have both.

I have a feeling most of us have waaaay more digital images than prints, though. Don’t forget to also print some of your photos even though it’s an extra step; prints get seen more readily and they’re more engaging. A photobook becomes a conversation piece and a point of connection for you and your family as you look through it together. I recommend you keep a folder on your computer titled “print” or “book.” On a daily, weekly, or monthly basis, put a copy of your favorite photos in this folder (just don’t wait until the end of the year to do it; that’ll suck and you might not do it if it’s too hard). Every few months get some 4x6 prints made or at the end of the year get a photobook made. You can also bring me on board to do this for you by signing up for one of my Year in the Life projects.

I hope you’ve found these tips helpful! Always, the key is to make finding and seeing your photos as frictionless as possible. If it’s too hard or overwhelming for us to revisit our favorite memories, we just won’t do it. Remove some of those barriers and take a few easy steps that make it easier for you and your loved ones to engage with the story of your lives. It’s so worth it!