How To Organize Your Digital Photos

Anyone who knows me knows I love pictures and organization! Since January is often a time that people kick off the year with good intentions on getting more organized, I thought I’d share some tips on how I organize my digital photos in hopes that it might help others.

DISCLOSURE: Some of the links in this post contain affiliate links, which come at no cost to you. Know that I only promote products I personally use and stand behind. To learn more about my affiliates, please review my disclosure policy.

Tip #1: Collect ALL your photos. Hook up your phone to your computer and download those images in high resolution. (Don’t attach them to emails and download on the desktop, as the phone sometimes condenses the images to a smaller size!) Save all the images passed over in email onto your computer and out of your inbox.  Download any of those you want too!

Tip #2: Create a schedule to collect all your photos, from all sources, regularly. The above tasks might be an overwhelming list if you try to do it all at once and you never did it before. Instead, create a schedule to do this every 1, 3, 6 or 12 months. Set a reminder on your smart phone so you won’t forget!

Tip #3: Get an external hard drive. Yes, your computer will probably have plenty of room for your digital files.  But what if your computer crashes? External hard drives are not as expensive as they used to be and they can help you save your digital memories. Get one. (UPDATE: This is the one we have but you can also get them in smaller storage amounts for less $: WD My Passport 1TB Portable External Hard Drive Storage USB 3.0 Black

Tip #4: Create a schedule to backup your photos regularly. Getting an external hard drive isn’t enough, unless you actually use it! I currently back up my photos every month or at least every other month. Do what works best for you, but do it at least twice a year. Perhaps your schedule can coordinate with the schedule from tip #2!

Tip #5: Organize chronologically by making a folder for each year. As you upload new photos put it in the yearly folder accordingly.

Tip #6: Within each yearly folder create a subfolder for each event, naming it by the numeric date first, followed by a short title. Numbers always stay in order on your computer while words are organized alphabetically. Don’t call your November trip folder “Arizona”. Call it “11.01.16 Arizona” so it stays in chronological order!

Tip #7: Include a zero in front of folders representing January – September. Again, since I use a numeric system to organize photos chronologically from each event, a zero is needed in front of months that are a single digit. Otherwise your computer might put October topics (listed as month “10”) directly after January topics (listed as “1”).

Tip #8: Create a separate organized folder section for random single photos. I take A LOT of pictures of Brielle. I send photos to Derek while he’s at work, trying to capture something funny or cute as it happens. I wouldn’t say these “one off” type photos need to be separated out in the dated folder structure I previously showed above. Instead I created a monthly folder and I throw all those random photos in these locations. Within each folder there is a “favorites” folder so I’m able to save the best of images for quick reference in the future.

Just a day after writing and scheduling this post, I came across this awesome post on the same topic from Click It Up a Notch! Check out her tips too!

Do you have any digital photo organization tips you’d like to share? Leave me a comment and share!