Does your camera roll stress you out? Do you wish you could find your photos when you need them? Did you know that the iCloud is not a storage system? Are you looking for a way to organize your phone photos?
I have a system for you!
First, why do we need a system? Because you’re going to keep taking photos! This problem isn’t going away. All it takes is one big effort to get it organized now, and then from now on it becomes EASY to maintain. I want you to think 20 years in the future. Your kids are looking for photos of their childhood. Are you planning on handing them a device to scroll through? What if you had curated albums and prints instead? Even better? Home movies!
Where to start:
What you need first is the app Slidebox. This is what makes it easy to sort and delete quickly! I prefer to organize my photos by year into albums on my phone. The app makes it super simple and easy. I personally believe you need to be deleting unwanted photos! We have too many. Keep in mind how many photos you are going to want to deal with in 10 years. I then make photo books from the albums on my camera roll.
How to print phone photos:
After all your photos are organized into albums you can make photo books! I like Chatbooks and they even have an app so you can do it straight from your phone. Shutterfly and Artifact Uprising are other options on opposite ends of the pricing spectrum. I choose to print one photo per page unless I took several that all go together. I used to edit photos for printing but there isn’t a great way to bulk edit a bunch of phone photos without taking them off my phone first and that’s just an extra step I don’t feel like taking.
I also like to print all my photos into prints. That way my kids can flip through them to hang in their rooms or use for projects. I use this storage box to store them. Amazon is really inexpensive (not the best quality but great for large quantities. Shutterfly is another option.
Backing up your phone photos ❌ iCloud for storage
This is important! iCloud is ONLY a backup for the photos on your phone. If you delete from your phone they are no longer on the cloud. You need a seperate place for long term storage. I recommend Amazon or Google photos. They both have an app and are either free or inexpensive based on what you’re already paying for. Storage is getting cheaper and cheaper. It’s going to be normal to have hundreds of thousands of photos.
