How do you organize photos?

[konapoppy]

I make my kids an album for each year. So far I have done them by age. But now I am wondering if I should switch to school year. Or even calendar year.

How do you organize your photos?

(And yes, I know many just keep them on their phone and never print!)

[charlatti]

We have calendar year albums — started as a Christmas gift from H to me and has worked nicely since then.

[cricketwife]

I do by calendar year. I think the fact my first born was an early January baby made it an obvious choice. We do a yearly family album, not individually per kid.

If I were doing yearly per kid, I would probably start the year at their birthday.

[konapoppy]

Oct 13, 2024 11:57:14 GMT -5 cricketwife said:

I do by calendar year. I think the fact my first born was an early January baby made it an obvious choice. We do a yearly family album, not individually per kid.

If I were doing yearly per kid, I would probably start the year at their birthday.

This is one and the same for me since my kids are twins!

[expectantsteelerfan]

We make 1 photo book per calendar year, although sometimes if we have a big trip with a TON of pictures, we'll make a separate book just for that trip too. I organize my photos by monthly albums within the calendar year.

[tiki]

I have 25000 photos just in iCloud. I am doomed.

[W.T.Faulkner]

I make a calendar for both my parents and my in-laws with photos from each month but I do absolutely nothing for us. Great. lol

[Jalapeñomel]

Oct 13, 2024 13:30:56 GMT -5 tiki said:

I have 25000 photos just in iCloud. I am doomed.

Yeah, I don’t think I’ve ever gone through them, and although I should, it’s too overwhelming.

[tiki]

One core question that keeps coming up for me: how many photos per [insert length of time] is it actually worthwhile to print and/or organize in some format? I suspect the number is really low. Like probably less than 100 per year. Another one is what do I do with videos? I can't even print those.

[fryjack2]

I make a Shutterfly every year that goes from my kids’ (twins) bday to birthday.

I also have 475957395653 pictures on my phone and lots of folders labeled things like, “vacation to x” “X event”. Etc.

During Covid, I went through and orders a million prints and bought albums to put them in.

Except pics from when my kids were 0-2.5. I dont Know where the external hard drive is that has those saved. And of course they are on a very old phone that I deleted.

I don’t know how to access the cloud to know if they are there.

[fryjack2]

lol that that made up number is actually a poster here?

[konapoppy]

Oct 13, 2024 14:58:57 GMT -5 tiki said:

One core question that keeps coming up for me: how many photos per [insert length of time] is it actually worthwhile to print and/or organize in some format? I suspect the number is really low. Like probably less than 100 per year. Another one is what do I do with videos? I can't even print those.

My photo books end up having like 250 photos 😬 but my kids are still elementary age. I expect it to decrease dramatically in the next few years. But we also typically do one round of pro photos so those go in there. And I make sure to include pictures with grandparents etc. they get copies too.

[tiki]

konapoppy, DD is the same age as yours, but I only have one. A book of photos of the same kid, adorable as I think she is, gets pretty dull! At least now we have a dog to mix it up a bit.

As an aside, there are also almost no photos that prove *I* exist, because we generally don't do pro photos, and H doesn't take pictures (or if he does, they're weird.)

[konapoppy]

Oct 13, 2024 17:00:11 GMT -5 tiki said:

konapoppy, DD is the same age as yours, but I only have one. A book of photos of the same kid, adorable as I think she is, gets pretty dull! At least now we have a dog to mix it up a bit.

As an aside, there are also almost no photos that prove *I* exist, because we generally don't do pro photos, and H doesn't take pictures (or if he does, they're weird.)

I grew up with a dad who refused to be in pictures and a husband who has basically no pictures, so I take a lot.

[sadlebred]

Year---Month---Event/What the photos are of----subfolders if needed

Ex.
2024
October
Cyclocross
Race 2
Women's Race

Or 2022-->June-->Margaret's Birthday Party

I've been doing stuff like this for 15 years or so and can go back to find most things

[lust2hart]

On my computer, they're organized by year and then subfolders for events. I also usually do a subfolder for all of our cat pictures, lol. I used to do year, then month, but realized if I'm looking for something specific, I might not know what month it happened. So, like, in the PP's example where she said she does 2022 - June - Margaret's Birthday Party, I actually might not remember that the bday party was in June. So I'll just make a subfolder directly in 2022 for the bday party pictures.

But I'm also pretty ruthless about deleting on my phone in the first place, so when I transfer them to my computer I only have a couple hundred for an entire year. Like, honestly, 2 pictures of your kid playing soccer are enough. Who wants to flip through multiple pages of a blurry Sammy in the middle of a bunch of other kids, trying to kick a ball? Or, like, one picture of your family at the pumpkin patch will suffice. I also try to focus on my pictures/albums having people in them - while I love beautiful sunsets, for example, that's not what future generations are going to be interested in - which, arguably, is the reason for having photos in the first place, to pass on your / your family's legacy...which is not sunsets.

I do a calendar year album via Chatbooks. And I'll do another album for anything more "major" - at this point, that's been vacations, and one album of our major home renovation.

[lillaguma]

Oct 13, 2024 13:54:21 GMT -5 Jalapeñomel said:

Oct 13, 2024 13:30:56 GMT -5 tiki said:

I have 25000 photos just in iCloud. I am doomed.

Yeah, I don’t think I’ve ever gone through them, and although I should, it’s too overwhelming.

I saw a suggestion a while ago that I liked, which is to go in and just search today's date (without the year) and go through those. Makes it a little more bite size. I haven't done it every day, but when I have a few minutes it's nice to feel like I got through a few.

[ssmjlm]

I make a shutterfly album for each calendar year. I'm up to 2022, LOL. 2023 is still in progress.

[konapoppy]

Oct 15, 2024 8:07:39 GMT -5 ssmjlm said:

I make a shutterfly album for each calendar year. I'm up to 2022, LOL. 2023 is still in progress.

It can be slow going for sure. I don’t even label anything anymore.

[meanie]

I admire all of you who continue to make albums. I have a couple for my DD from newborn - 2 and one for DS from newborn - 1. For their 1st bday parties I printed off a year's worth of pictures and put them on display so there is a box of those somewhere as well. 

Other than that it is a mess of digital photos saved on computers, phones, and on shutterfly. I make my parents a calendar each year so I have those saved online, but I am running out of storage space on Google.

I would like to centralize all the digital photos and print off my favorites for an album but the project is so daunting.

[EvieEthelGarland]

I do from birthday to birthday (early Aug) so each new one starts with a summer vacation or back to school. I only do them every other year so now I have the problem of him graduating right before he turns 19. Do I do a three year book? There are a lot less pics of him as he's gotten older and more independent, but I do ask to include photos from trips and events I'm not part of. Right now I'm thinking of doing 16-college drop off and then he's on his own for hard copy memories.

I clean out/organize my camera photos when I fly.  A Seattle to SoCal flight is the perfect amount of time to deal with about 6 months of back log

[dutchgirl678]

I have all my photos in Lightroom with folders per year and albums starting with the month and then a meaningful title. I also have some on Smugmug but I need to update more frequently. Also, I used to pay $40 per year and now they have raised prices again to $110 per year, so I'm not sure if I'm going to keep it.

I create albums with Blurb for each year and for special events like summer holidays.

[Susie]

I am incapacitated by the weight of my Photos library, most of which is backed up in Amazon (unlimited photo storage free with Prime).

I have my own photo library + my mom's, which I inherited along with the role of family historian when she died.  She took a million photos but almost never went back through them to delete the less-good angles of the same thing.  I also have scanned old photos in the library which aren't meaningfully sortable by any particular metadata.

There's a lot of wheat there, but 2-3x as much chaff.  I make tiny dents here and there, but I drown in it.

[mpc]

I make a photo book for each calendar year. I also make a smaller book if we take a big vacation. Then in December I make a literally small book (5x5) that contains only pictures of the kids - more about their expressions and who they are rather than what we did that year. This one is by far the quickest to make. I can do it in a day or two. The other ones take me much longer.

I use picaboo.com and their max is 160 pages per book, which I usually hit with the year books. It's a lot but I don't know how to do less. My new photo mantra is, just because I have a picture of it, doesn't mean I need to put it in the book.

ssmjlm, I am currently almost done with 2020! I started in 2009 and fell behind one year every time I had a baby, then I lost another year in 2022 when I was sick. I just keep pressing on. Eventually it will get done lol.

[jg183]

I also make a family photo yearbook each year with monthly sections that include trips and our annual family pro pics

[aspentosh]

I make a photo book each year for DD. Her birthday is in January, so I basically do calendar year.

I sort photos into folders by year (DD name 2024) then within that folder, another folder by month (1- January) and then a folder for an event if it's a lot of photos on one day (Birthday party). It. helps keep things contained, but also as I make the book, I can work month by month and not feel overwhelmed. There is something to be said for only pulling in January photos to start with, then February once you finish that.

I also do a photo book of any large family trip we take.