Organizing Digital Photo Collections - Expert Tips and Tricks

How do you organize your digital photo collection across your phone, tablet, computer, and other devices? We all have thousands of photos in our camera roll and various galleries, in this episode of Cathi's Pics Live, Cathi Nelson welcomes digital photo organizing expert Casey Von Stein, aka Miss Freddy to talk about how to organize your collection and keep it that way once and for all!
Apple Photos, Google Photos, Dropbox, Mylio, Forever, Adobe, OneDrive - the choices can be overwhelming! Whether you're a seasoned photographer or just love to take pics of your family (or food!) this session promises expert insights and invaluable tips to streamline your digital photo library.
Download our Top 10 Tips for Managing Digital Photo Chaos here: pages.thephotomanagers.com/10...
Get Casey’s “Understanding External Hard Drives” download here:
missfreddy.com/digital-organi...
Visit Casey von Stein (Miss Freddy)'s website here: missfreddy.com/
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[@thephotomanagers]

Thanks for joining us, @missfreddy! Who here already uses an external hard drive to backup your photos?

[@LBoyleable]

I'm just getting started. This chat was amazing! Thanks for the tips.

[@thephotomanagers]

So glad you found this helpful. One step at a time

[@sandypappas3210]

You talked about organizing from iCloud but I don't see a search in iCloud ? Also I have extensive libraries on my phone and mac - only one is backed up to iCloud. My album names are different on my phone vs. Mac. IF I combine both libraries to iCloud will ALL the albums be displayed. I haven't received a clear answer from Apple if one library will overwrite the other or if they will both combine in icloud and then show up on my phone and mac. Hope that makes sense. Thank you

[@miss.freddy]

To fully use iCloud you will need it enabled on BOTH devices, with the same Apple ID. The initial sync will take a few days while iCloud sorts out what already exists, updates albums, etc- but eventually it’ll end with the same number of photos on both devices and show the same albums on both devices. If the albums are different on both devices, they will ALL be displayed after sync. You’ll need to be patient for a few days after enabling iCloud in both places while it updates everything but it’s fabulous once it’s done! And search is inside the Apple Photos app/program on your phone and computer.

[@sandypappas3210]

@@miss.freddy thank you for your quick response. I've been hesitant to do this since I have over 80k photos combined but after listening to your talk it's really the only way to establish 'my hub' and get going on organization. I was concerned one library would wipe out the other. On another note you mentioned you have over 300 albums ( I also have a lot) I find the Photos App a little cumbersome to use with albums. When adding a photo having to scroll through them all to find your selection. I'm sure iCloud will continue to improve. One suggestion I have for Apple (the genius hadn't even heard this one when I called) is to add an identifier to photos making note that the photo your viewing is already in an album. I've done a lot of organizing over the years by date, month etc. but often forget if I've added a photo to an album or not and then you just end repeating the same effort.

[@miss.freddy]

@@sandypappas3210 you're Mac-based right? If so it's really quick and easy to sort Albums into FOLDERS within Apple Photos on the Mac. That work syncs with your phone via iCloud once iCloud is fully setup and working properly. That's the secret to keeping my 300 albums feeling organized- they're in folders by category. And in the Apple Photos program on Mac, you can use Smart Albums to find everything that is NOT in an album. I personally don't need to know that info (my goal isn't to have 100% of my photos live in an album) but it's a pretty popular request from my students and clients. Unfortunately smart albums are not available on iPhone and don't sync across devices so it's a Mac-only tool.

[@larmaz13]

If deleting daily don’t they disappear from all devices via ICloud?

[@thephotomanagers]

yes and that is the goal - to eliminate the photos that are not worth saving.