So many photos, albums, mobile, computer

When my Mum died, she had many, many albums of her travels - none of which were labelled, and all of which contained "views". I had no idea where any of them were taken. But they were my Mum's memories, not mine, so I binned all that I could not identify, keeping only those that had people I knew in them.

I then managed to apply this method to my own (huge) collection - looking at it through the eyes of my daughters, who would have to sort all my albums when I finally shuffle of this mortal coil. All "views" have gone, I have them in my head along with the atmosphere they created at the time. My girls will not be able to do that, so I have saved them the heartache of decision.

All others have been put into slip albums in chronological date order, or sent to appropriate members of the family if I felt they would be interested. I have also culled my digital photos, by having them printed for free by an online site, and deleting them from my phone, tablet and computer.

I think you have to be ruthless. A family group I had taken resulted in all members of the group (around a table) actually had their backs to the camera, so, although it was part of a Family Day, it was useless as a record.

Just my thoughts, I hope they helped.

Monica I would love to be as organised as you.

I have family photos with my children in daughters old vanity case, and an album of my extended family
My husband has boxes of photos of his children and extended family in underbed storage, lots more in a cupboard. We have our own holiday photos in several folders in a cardboard box and on 2 computers and three laptops some downloaded to disks. We keep meaning to sort them....
I do think it was better when people just took a film or two on holiday. I think we take too many photos nowadays.

Just edit them. I have done this with family albums as well, gone through the albums, kept the key ones, offered the rest to other family members and then chucked anything left.

Yes mumski, it is a dilemma isn't it? I have albums from when I was a child with my parents, relatives etc and then there are albums of my husbands side too. Moving on to albums when our children were growing up, holiday albums, grandchildren albums. As I've said, now i have so many on my phone and computer. Not to mention that i have old NHS videos too! Good grief, I'd forgotten about them lol

Thank you Polomint for raising this. I've been tying myself in knots over this dilemma (silly I know). When my DH died in 2019 I felt I became the guardian of my beloved step children's recent memories of him as they were only 18 19 and 20 years old at the time and my own daughters memories too. So far I've gathered actual photos into one place - 2 large crates in the spare room but there are so many on Drop box and on my phone. I could really do with suggestions what to do so they don't vanish.

Same here MOnica
A while ago I found all the photos of my granddaughter's wedding on my tablet and now they have disappeared. I know I didn't delete them so what techno black hole has claimed them?

Nowadays, when we take so many, and have them online, I always go through them a few days after I have taken them and delete most and only keep ones that 'say' something, and only say it once.

That reminds me ........

That reminds me - I must start on mine .....

I had thousands of slides and seem to have spent a lot of my retirement scanning them into the computer as they were beginning to deteriorate. Now they are also in the ‘cloud’ where they are safe and from where I can also access them on my phone and tablet. I pay a small monthly fee for this happy in the knowledge that if the house is ever on fire, all I need to do is grab my phone! The slides themselves got binned, I was never going to get my projector and screen out again. Too much hassle.
My late DH took as many prints. I have a cupboard full of albums and feel guilty that I don’t feel like spending more years putting them into the computer. I have done a few of the best. I like to look through the albums but obviously couldn’t save them from fire. I’m banking on that being unlikely.

I have put mine and my husband’s family photos in large envelopes, all labelled with names on the back.
I married my husband in 1975 and have put each year’s photos in separate envelopes with the year written on each envelope. They are kept in collapsible storage boxes which I picked up in a stationery shop.
After 2002 when we had a digital camera they are stored on the laptop and dvds.

I have stored them