Three Tips to Organize Your Phone Photos in 2022

Is one of your goals this year to tackle your photos? For many people, this can seem overwhelming and stressful, for others it’s something that is continually put off.

Most people these days take the majority of photos on their phones, so that is what I focus on here, but these techniques apply to all photos, everywhere.

Tip 1: Don’t try to do it all at once.

As a professional photo organizer, the first step I take with clients is to gather everything together, all in once place, then organize the whole thing all at once. It is, after all, the most efficient way to do it - as a professional photo organizer I have the expertise and tools to work this way. But for you, this is likely an overwhelming and herculean task, one you are unlikely to finish. SO DON’T. Yup, you heard me, DON’T. Unless you are supremely dedicated, retired, or have a whole lot of time, you will likely just get frustrated.

Instead, make a plan that you can implement in short bursts of time. Utilize the time you have waiting for an appointment, waiting to pick up a child, or set aside a few minutes a day at breakfast or after dinner. You’ll be amazed at what you can accomplish in 15 minute spurts.

Tip 2: Start small, one month at a time.

Ok. So you have 15 minutes. Now what? Start with December 2021. On your phone you can actually search December 2021 so that you are looking at just those photos. Scroll through and do the following:

Delete. Did you take a family photo this season? How many tries did it take? Keep the best one or two and delete the rest. Delete photos of parking spaces, receipts you might not need, gifts you considered giving. Delete fuzzy photos, photos of feet, and accidental videos. Photos of Christmas lights? You probably have no need for all of them. Keep the best and toss the rest.

Place remaining photos in digital albums and/or add captions or keywords. For example, albums for holidays, family gatherings, activities, or cute pet photos. Did you attend any children’s concerts or other unique events? Place these photos in an album. Do you have any “record” photos you want to keep? Create an album for them. Think about creating albums for your groups of “best” photos, such as the best photos of you kids and pets. Consider albums for just 2021, or albums that span multiple years: I have one album for all of my son’s orchestra concerts, all years included.

A “record” picture - a photo I’m keeping to remind me of this crazy season of Covid self-testing.

Adding a caption so I can later search “Loki” and find this photo and more.

Adding captions: On your iPhone, swipe up on the photo and a white bar below it will appear that says “add a caption.” There are few different ways on an Android phone, but if you use Google Photos on your Android, click the three horizontal dots at the top right and select “add description,” then the arrow on the top left to save. You don’t need to place every photo in an album, nor do you need to caption every photo. But these are tools that will help you find these photos later on.

Bonus tip: keep track of your progress in your notes app.

Tip 3: Move forward and backward at the same time.

As you clean out and organize your backlog of prior photos, use that same method moving forward. Set a repeating task on your calendar for the first of the month reminding you to clean out the prior month’s photos. That way you won’t continue to create photo overwhelm.

Still feeling overwhelmed or don’t think you have time?

I can clean out and organize your photo library - all of it, not just what’s on your phone - it’s what I do. Then you only need to worry about keeping it organized moving forward using the maintenance plan you will receive when I’m done. Schedule a chat or send me an email to learn more.

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