Organizing starts with culling
Once thousands of photos pile up, sorting them feels impossible and in the end nobody looks at them again. The first step is not making folders but taking photos away. Weeding out bursts of the same scene, shaky shots and accidental frames cuts the volume sharply and lets the remaining photos stand out. Choosing while the memory is fresh, such as the evening of the shoot or right after a trip, is much faster. After a few months it becomes hard to judge which of several similar shots was better.
Culling criteria
If you start looking for reasons to keep every photo, you will delete none. Setting criteria in advance cuts the hesitation. For photos you cannot bear to delete, mark them instead of deleting right away and look again much later.
- Out of focus or shaky, blurry when enlarged
- Eyes closed or an awkward expression
- All but the best one or two of several shots of a scene
- Reference photos and screenshots you no longer need
- Photos you cannot think of a reason to look at again
Folder structure and names
If you store photos on a computer, event folders inside year folders hold up well over the years. Putting the date at the start of a folder name as numbers in year-month-day order makes alphabetical sorting identical to chronological sorting. For example, inside the year folder you create a folder named with the date plus a short description such as family trip. Write months and days as two digits, adding a leading zero, so sorting does not get out of order. Avoid special characters and very long sentences in file names, which can cause problems on other devices or programs.
Albums and favorites
Albums in a phone photo app are usually lists pointing to the same photos rather than copies. Adding a photo to several albums therefore uses no extra space, but depending on the app, deleting from an album may delete the original or only remove it from that album, so always read the prompt before deleting. If you use favorites or stars only for truly good photos, you can find them instantly when printing or showing someone. Automatic grouping by people and places is handy but not perfect, so treat it as a helper.
When dates and times go wrong
Photo apps sort by the capture date and time recorded in the file. Photos received through a messenger or some services may have that information stripped, so they show the received or saved date instead. Photos from a camera with a wrong clock, or taken abroad without updating the time zone, also fall out of order. Many photo apps and computer programs let you edit the capture date, so select several photos at once and fix them together. If you use a digital camera, checking its clock and time zone before a trip is the simplest prevention.
Originals, edits and videos
When saving an edited photo separately, adding a short marker after the original file name makes pairs easy to find. If you delete the original and keep only the edit, you cannot rework it later, so keep both for important photos. Videos are far larger than photos, so culling them separately is effective. Trimming a long clip down to the part you need makes it easier to watch and saves space. Keep screenshots and reference photos in a separate album or folder so they do not mix with memories, and empty it regularly.
Moving photos to a computer
Connecting the phone with a cable and importing is usually the most reliable way to move photos to a computer. If you have turned on a space-saving setting in a cloud photo library, the phone may hold only small previews while the originals live in the cloud, so make sure the originals have finished downloading. After moving, do not delete from the phone right away; first check that the count matches and open a few files to confirm they are fine. For keeping the moved photos safely in more than one place, see the data backup guide, and for checking location data before sharing, see the guide on information in photos.
An organizing routine
A big one-off cleanup tends to pile up again. Short, frequent sessions last much longer. Repeating roughly the steps below once a month keeps photos from piling up beyond control.
- Delete blurry shots and duplicates from last month
- Move keepers into folders or albums named by date and event
- Mark the best photos as favorites
- Clear out screenshots and reference photos
- Check that your backup is current
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