As we continue taking photos on our phones and upgrading to devices that can store more and more photos, we’re left with major photo storage problems. At the time I’m writing this, my iPhone is housing 22,506 photos and 1,848 videos. 🙃😵‍💫🫣

This tip won’t help so much with historic photos, but it’s a good practice to implement moving forward so that we don’t continue to make the problem worse.

Set a recurring reminder on your phone for the first of every month to sort through last month’s photos.

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Once your reminder is set, here are some simple steps you can take to clean up and manage your photo storage.

Step 1: Cull Photos

Sort through your photos and delete anything you don’t need. The screenshot function is an awesome tool, but it’s also dangerous. I wind up with SO many random screenshots that I don’t need for long and are taking up valuable space on my phone. Get rid of things you don’t need anymore and won’t reference again!

Step 2: Remove duplicates

Along with culling, remove duplicates. These three photos look almost identical, but you’ll see each one actually has a different image name, meaning they’re all different! Do I need three versions of this exact same photo? NOPE. How do I decide which one to delete? Just pick one! Delete the other two, move on, and don’t look back.

Step 3: Organize

Have you ever gone to post a photo for a loved one’s birthday and spent a ridiculous amount of time sorting through your phone photos looking for that one perfect photo from that one get together that you thought was in May 2022, but maybe it was June 2022, but actually maybe it was April only to never find it, give up, and post the first random photo of them you can find? Same.

Or maybe it’s the end of the year and you’re looking for photos for a Christmas card only to scroll through hundreds of photos from the year and never find that one that you really loved.

Maybe you’re looking for photos of a child to use at their graduation party and are overwhelmed with years of photos to sort through.

Here’s where organizing comes into play! Create albums on your phone.

Here are some examples of album themes:

• Photos to print
• An album for each family member
• Recipes you screenshotted while scrolling
• A specific place you visit frequently. I have an album of photos from our trips to the Sandhills
• Vacations
• Milestones

The list goes on! Use albums in a way that helps you stay organized.

Step 4: Print your photos

Did you see the part about an album of photos to print? Don’t forget to print your shoebox photos! Digital photos certainly have their place, but it’s nothing like having a physical photo to see and cherish and share. Write notes on the back of the photo with who is in the photo, where it took place, and a date. These memories may be passed down and a few generations down the line may not recognize the people or places in the photos!

So now what are you waiting for? Go set the reminder in your phone to sort your photos every month! You’ll have better photo storage practices in place in no time!