Organizing Your Photos

I've had a lot of people ask me how I organize/store my photos so I thought I'd make a post about it.  I know this system works because I use it, and has worked for me for many years. :) It may not work for everyone, but maybe it will inspire your own ideas that work for you.

I take A LOT of photos, especially since I'm doing our Everyday Life project (take a photo a day).  My system for organizing photos has been tweaked over the years until I've finally found something that works. It's so frustrating to have digital photos and not be able to find them.  First of all, I unload my camera card often... usually every other day or so. I would hate for the camera to get lost or for the photos to get accidentally deleted. I put the new pictures in new folders according to the directions below.

First, in my Pictures Folder, I have sub-folders that are by year. That way I can keep track of my 2010, 2011, 2012 pictures by their own folders. Inside each individual year, I have more sub-folders. Now, if I take some pictures at Christmas, and name the folder "Christmas 2012", guess where the folder goes? It alphabetizes the folder and puts it toward the beginning of the folders. If I took some pictures in January about going snow tubing, and I name the folder "Snow Tubing"... guess where that folder goes? Toward the end. That default system is not good for me. I wanted to have my January folders listed first, and the December folders listed last within my year folder. I wanted to know that if I was looking for a picture taken in December, I would scroll to the end of my folders, and find the pictures taken in December. Now, the reason for the numbers... I put a number before my folder description so that I can put the name of the folder whatever I want. The computer will store the folder in numerical order. So back in 2009, I started with folder 01. It's full name was "01 - January Pics." The next folder was "02 - Brooklyn's Birthday." Her birthday is in February.  Today I am at folder number 614. The number DOES NOT matter. It just keeps them in order.

I've seen people who go in and rename each and every photo. Wow. If you have the time to do that, great. I do not. I name the folder something I know I can find and know that the pictures inside it will be what I'm looking for.

Now... this is VERY IMPORTANT.  Backup, Backup, Backup. Even though I unload my card, and put my photos on my computer, I also plug in my external drive and back them up. Your photos should ALWAYS be in at least two different locations at all times! I can't tell you how many times people have told me they've lost their external hard drives and all their photos on them. Don't let that happen to you. If they are in two places, if one fails, you have another to use. I personally have three backups. I have them on two hard drives and DVD's. (Not the DVD's you play in the DVD player, but used for storage.)

Here is my DVD photo storage case. Each DVD has photo previews on them so I can easily find a photo I'm looking for. It also has the date range of the photos so I know which disk pull for a photo taken on that day. I can't tell you how nice it is to have this case of photos.

No matter how you do it... I can't stress enough how important it is to BACKUP your photos!