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 sort them in years, events and some regular groupings. Let’s explore this idea further in the post below.

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 whether it is paper-based or electronic 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 which holiday
Any significant live events / the birth of a child / a marriage/trip of a lifetime etc.

You simply repeat this system every year

The people that come in and out of your life will change the sequential nature of the years 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.

Paper-based photos

Most of the people my age and older still remember print photos and have a box or ten…with these print photos. This can be a great organising project to do in winter.

In terms of the best way to organise photos – paper-based it works the same as 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 how to organise paperwork.

When you have groups and subgrouping of photos that are good and you want to keep place them in either envelopes or photo storage solutions. Use some labeling to explain what is in each envelope or box.

Decluttering your photos

One of the best things you can do to organise your photos is 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 roles hasn’t been the case since our great grandparents were alive.

Finding photos

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 simply select them all and name them Christmas_2012 the system will automatically add a number behind them. If I want to find for example declutter for my website I will use this as a 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 up in a certain size I will do this and add it to the file name (saving myself from doing this again in the future).

Say my picture is called declutter_living_room this becomes 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.

How to organise digital photos?

Digital photos have been a fantastic new technology. However, with every new technological advantage, over time, we find out 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. And now most of us are having to learn, how to organise our digital photos, as well as learning new software programs that go with it. In the text above I explain what I think the best way to organise photos is. Below I’ll give you an easy step-by-step guide on how to organise your photos.

A step-by-step method on how to organise digital photos

Of course, there is some variety in how people approach this rather large job but here are the steps I go through 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 – mean you move photos in sub folders for the year

5. Sort again and work on photos in more detail (Crop, edit, and Name)

6. Share your photos with others

1. How to organise digital photos - Download your pictures and back them up

I find this by far the most annoying job as the pictures show up in random folders and several photo sources need to be downloaded (digital cameras, iPhones, iPads etc.) to get all the pictures.

To make it easier; a card reader is a fantastic tool. One $10,- card reader tends to be able to read the memory card of a range of different cameras.

For mobile Phones in most cases, you 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 back 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 the computer, ask a friend, relative or see if there is a good Youtube video that will help you (you will need to 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

Which every way 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 have a read through this page.

I organise my digital photos on my computer in year and topic categories.

I have the following files;

Digital photos > Year > Topic. The topic, in this case, is a ‘to sort‘ folder.

You can have another system say Digital photos> Topic > year.

The difference between these systems is in how you think upon retrieval. 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 would think differently but still want 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 which 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 your photos to only quality shots and special memories.

4. Do a quick sort on categories

In your ‘to sort’ file you now only have good quality pictures you want to keep. They will mostly have a similar theme or topic, create a folder for each theme examples of these are Folders for your children, a folder for Christmas or 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’ this 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 photo’s -> Photos overall sorted in category* -> 2008 -> Christmas

But you can also use: Digital photo’s -> 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”.

Get the Book

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. How to organise digital photos - Share your snaps with others

Decide if you want to send these photos on or share in any other form in which case you might opt to duplicate some photos and place them in different folders.

Prior to getting my photos printed I create a "TO PRINT" folder on my computer (or USB) which allows me to print all the photos I want in one clean sweep. There is a variety of options in regards to printing these days like bringing it 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.

A few final things to keep in mind when organising digital photos

This is not the easiest organising project.

These steps are most likely not done in one sitting, this of course depends on the number of photos you have. If you have years of digital photos to go through slow and easy does it. 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 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 way of quickly getting snaps in some form of booklets is using an app. In this video, I show you an example.

If you have years of photos to sort

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.

At every little goal achieved, pad yourself on the back and continue with the next “pile of digital photos”. Once you sort through your pictures every year and/or every event, it becomes a manageable task and the joys of having organised photos are immense!