Strategies to take control of your screenshots

Are you a screenshot junkie? Do you take screenshots of memes, social media posts, websites, texts, or …?

How many screenshots do you have? How old is your oldest one? What is it? Let me know in the comments below. If you don’t know how to find them, scroll down to the bottom of this post.

Almost all of us have too many screenshots. Screenshots are great to create a quick reminder - most of us always have our phones but not paper and pencil. And it’s such an easy way to remember! See something on the web or social media that you might want to reference later? Take a screenshot. But the problem is that a) you never actually go back to look at it, b) you forget you have it, c) you often can’t find it even if you know it’s there, and/or d) you actually do use it but then never delete it.

My oldest screenshot is a text from my son, who had just bought his first phone back in 2016. I’m purposefully keeping that one, as it is a memory that I would like to commemorate. The beginning of the end, so to speak.

 And then there is this one. Remember when Pokemon Go was a big thing back in the summer of 2016? Do I need this? I suppose an argument could be made that this too is a memory worth saving to remember the trend, but I certainly don’t need 10 of them.

But this one? Do I need to remember that it was 90 degrees on July 24, 2016? Not likely.

Deleting screenshots is one of the easiest ways to start paring down your photo library. I see the following general categories of screenshots in my client’s phones:

• Texts (not the actual text, but a screenshot of the text)

• Weather (this is really common!)

• Maps and directions

• Store hours, addresses and events

• Recipes from websites

• Books from social media

• Web articles on health, fitness, and politics

And here is what I do with them, or counsel clients to do with them:

• Texts: sometimes these should be saved, such as the text from my son, but many can be deleted

• Weather (this is really common!): delete

• Maps and directions: generally outdated, delete

• Store hours, addresses and events: generally outdated, delete

• Recipes from websites: create an album or folder called “recipes,” and move them there

• Books from social media: create an album or folder called “books,” and move them there

• Web articles on health, fitness, and politics: create albums for each of these if you would like to keep them. Generally clients keep the health and fitness articles and delete the political as they become outdated quickly

• Any categorical-type photos that you have a lot of should be in their own album or keyworded for easy access

I also counsel clients to create a “reference” album for photos of items that you may need to use later as … you guessed it … reference – vaccine cards, insurance cards, documents (more than just screenshots, obviously).

Want to start deleting these space-hogging photos? Here’s how you find your screenshots:

On Android, there are several places they may be but there should be an album or folder called “screenshots” in your photo library.

On iPhone, in Photos, scroll to the bottom of your screen and select “Albums.” Scroll down to “Media Types” and you will see “Screenshots” towards the bottom. On a Mac, Media Types is usually at the top of the album list.

So go ahead and start deleting! Don’t worry, if you have “deleter’s remorse” (yes, this is a term I just made up but I think it will catch on), pull them back out of your recently deleted folder.

If you would like help cleaning up your digital library, please get in touch!