If you are like most people, you will have dozens of unorganised photos on your cell phone, tablet and other devices and perhaps your camera. Then there are all those downloaded jokes and videos you have saved over the years.
With all these images, it can be almost impossible to find the ones you are looking for when you want to look at them or show them to someone else. What you need is a simple but effective organising system that you can maintain without spending too much time or effort.
Once you have organised them, you will probably look at your photos more often, seeing that you can easily find the ones that matter most.
Delete
The first step is to decide which images you want to keep and delete the rest.
Going through your old photos will be a trip down memory lane, which you will undoubtedly enjoy. As you go through them, delete the ones you won't be keeping. For example, you probably don't need to keep dozens of photos of the same holiday scene.
It may seem daunting to organise years and years of photos, but you don’t need to do them all at once. Set a goal of weeding one year’s worth of photos over a month or two - or any other timeframe that suits you.
Folders
There are many different places to store images, such as your cell phone, tablet or computer. Phones and tablets are more portable, so if you often show photos to friends and family, these are suitable devices for backing up your photos.
If you regularly import photos from different devices, your computer may be a more suitable choice. A main folder entitled ‘Photos’ or similar can easily be moved to another computer or backed-up quickly when needed.
Whichever device you choose for storing your photos, the first step is to create appropriately-named folders and sub-folders. For example, if you have lots of photos of your children, you could have one folder called ‘Kids’ with a subfolder for each child.
You may also want to create folders to group all photos of a similar theme. For example, keeping track of your children's first day of school can contain an image or two from each year, which you and your children will enjoy looking at when they are older. Likewise, suppose you want to put together a collage of photos for birthdays or other anniversaries. In that case, you will easily be able to find the photos that capture the special moments in your children’s lives.
Titles
Images stored on your computer should have descriptive names so that you can easily search for them. For instance, if you take photos of your son John on holiday in Cape Town, the photos could be called John Cape Town 2022 beach, John Cape Town 2022 aquarium.
Some people like to store photos by date, but unless you can recall when they were taken, you won't easily be able to track them down. Alphabetical filing systems are generally more effective for retrieving almost any item.
Back-ups
It's not always possible to save photos to your computer the same day you take them. However, it's always best to import your photos as soon as possible to avoid accidental losses. In addition, it's a good idea to make time each month to take photos off your camera's memory card and email yourself the images you want to keep from your phone or other devices.
You might inevitably have a hard drive crash at some point, so it's essential to regularly back-up your photos – at least once a month. Many different back-up systems are available, ranging from external hard drives and flash drives to online back-up storage systems that will back up your photos for a fee.
If you have printed photos you would like to store digitally; you can scan them yourself or use a service like digiphoto or paperflight to do it for you.
Having said that, one of the best ways to back up your photos is to print them and place them in photo albums. Digital storage is an excellent way of saving space. However, new technologies are often unable to read previously files created. As a result, within a few years, you may not be able to retrieve your precious memories in digital form, whereas hard copies carefully preserved in albums can give you pleasure for many years.
You can stay organised and preserve memories by following the guidelines provided above.
Writer : Sarah-Jane Meyer