Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Hacks & How-to's
  3. Evergreens

How to organize your photos so they’ll last forever

By

Memories fade, but photographs are forever. Okay, that’s a little cliché, but it’s true. Photographs document the special people and events in your life, capturing the small moments that spark stories, lively conversation, and bittersweet nostalgia. Further, they also allow future generations to connect with family from the past.

Whether they’re printed or digital, it can be quite easy for photographs to get lost. Making sure you have an organization system for your valuable memories is crucial to keeping them safe and accessible for those days you want to take a walk down memory lane.

Let’s get started and dive into some of the best ways to store those precious memories.

Photo organization system for digital photos

One of the best — and worst — parts of having a camera built into your phone is that you can take pictures anytime you want. Unfortunately, this often results in having hundreds or even thousands of random pictures saved to your phone. Short of hitting ‘delete all’ and starting from scratch, how can you manage it all? 

First, the purge…

Go through your photos and delete the duplicates then eliminate any poorly lit, blurry, and just plain bad photos. Keep in mind that you know your photos better than anyone, so if that blurry photo actually holds a great memory, feel free to keep it.

A place for everything

Once you’ve purged what isn’t needed, it’s time to organize. Create photo albums or folders on your phone and designate a spot for every type of photo. You can categorize by specific people, special events, or location, to name a few. This will make it much easier to find the photos you want to show someone since you won’t need to scroll through your entire collection. 

Creating better digital photo habits

Now that you’ve purged and organized, establish a consistent routine (once a week, perhaps) of reviewing recent additions to your photostream and keeping only the important snaps. 

Remember that phones are finicky devices, so be sure to back up your photos to an external storage device or to the cloud. This frees up space on your phone and ensures that a broken device doesn’t mean lost photos.

Last, digital photos are very convenient but quite easy to accidentally delete. Stay on the safer side and order prints of your favorite photos so you always have a hard copy backup.

Organizing your prints

Shoeboxes stuffed with old photos are a staple in many homes. It’s time to remove all of those buried photos from closets and drawers and display them where they can be enjoyed. While it’s a time-intensive task, just a few hours of sifting through old photos can actually organize years’ worth of photos. 

First step… sorting!

This is the part that is going to take the most time, but once it’s done the rest is pretty easy. 

Follow the same process you would with digital snaps and go through all your photos, categorize them, and throw away the unnecessary ones. Using the Marie Kondo approach, keep only the photos that spark joy, and if that includes a blurry picture or two, so be it.

Don’t let all of your hard work go to waste by forgetting where you left off or which boxes hold which categories. Keep everything properly labeled and add tabbed dividers to make identifying subcategories much easier.

Before entering your photos into their new permanent storage home, we recommend writing on the back of prints to identify who is pictured and the context surrounding the photograph. Use a soft lead pencil to document information — hard lead pencils can leave an indentation on the front side of the photo. Most importantly, place the photo face down on a clean, dry surface and write with light pressure.

Uniform storage solutions

Invest in matching photo albums or photo storage boxes, especially if they’ll be on display. While the design is important, the storage should protect your photographs as well. Always look for the term ‘archival safe’ or acid-free when selecting albums. Over time, contact with album pages that contain chemicals including acid, lignin, or PVC can hasten the deterioration process of photos.

Photo safety tips to keep in mind

  1. To prevent damage, keep photos in a consistent, controlled climate, ideally in moderate temperates (between 65 and 70 degrees Fahrenheit) with humidity levels around 50 percent. Do your pics a favor and keep your albums out of hot attics or damp basements.  
  2. Overexposure to sunlight causes photographs to fade, so make sure your displays don’t spend too long in direct sunlight.
  3. Even if your hands don’t look dirty, your fingertips contain dirt and oils that can damage photos. When handling photos, touch only the sides or use white cotton gloves to prevent deterioration.

Spend some time this weekend walking down memory lane and sorting your photographs to keep those heartwarming memories safe and accessible. From now on, those precious moments will never be out of reach.

Topics
Say goodbye to weeds in patio pavers with these proven methods
Whether you want a quick fix or a natural solution, your patio will be pristine again
Weeds growing between patio pavers next to a brick wall

If you have a perfect picture in your mind of what your yard looks like in pristine and tip-top condition, it likely doesn’t include an image of the lawn covered in weeds — or weeds between your patio pavers. Weeds seem to pop up in the worst places and the least opportune times — but they also leach the soil’s nutrients that could be feeding your lawn or garden. If you want to know how to kill weeds between pavers once and for all, keep reading.

Read more
Vacuum packing clothes: Does it really save storage space?
Here are the pros and cons of vacuum sealing your clothing
Man holding vacuum-sealed clothing

Regardless of the size of your space, it often feels as if you'll never have enough room for storage. That's why it's crucial to maximize your storage areas with a few space-saving solutions so your garage, attic, or closet can stay tidy and organized. When packing away seasonal items, one of the most popular methods is to vacuum pack clothes. Vacuum sealing your clothing can create additional space in your closet and make it easier to transition your wardrobe for the seasons. That being said, this strategy isn't without its drawbacks, and it might not be the best way to tackle every organizing project.

Today, we're answering some vital questions about this storage method. After all, you want to protect and preserve your clothing items. So, before pulling out the heavy-duty storage bags, read through these pros and cons of vacuum packing to determine if this storage hack is a fit for you.
How does vacuum sealing work?

Read more
Should you regrout your bathroom? What to consider first
Regrout, reglaze, or replace? What you need to know
Classic white subway tile in shower

If your bathroom tile grout is stained, dirty, or otherwise looking old, it's not only unsightly, but it can make it difficult to sell your home. You may be wondering if you should regrout the shower or other tiled areas of the bathroom. Sometimes grout staining occurs no matter how much you clean it, and the result is tile that looks dirty even though it isn't.

Luckily, there are a few different ways you can freshen up your grout without remodeling your bathroom, and they include some affordable, do-it-yourself options.

Read more