
Ultimately, the number of tiers that you have isn’t too important. If you shoot far more regularly, you might want to add an extra level of photo organization that splits each year into individual months, with events then placed inside each month. Note how the highest folder is the year which is then split up into individual events labelled according to the date: the month first, then the day, and then a description of the event. You can see an example of a folder structure organized and based on the date in the image above. Organising photos by date will work best for most people as other means of categorising can be confusing, particularly if suddenly your categories start to overlap.įor example, if you have “Travel” and “Family”, what happens in a few years when you get married and go on holiday with your partner or other family members? Most likely you’ll find that you adapt yourself to whatever system you choose, and the biggest hurdle is getting started. The best option is to simply pick one and go with it. If that sounds familiar, here’s the answer: there is no perfect system. It’s not unusual to find yourself unable to decide what sort of photo organizing system to implement as you’re not sure whether to organize by location, date, or camera. Alternatively, once you’ve gathered your files together, you can start organizing. You may wish to set up a system before you start gathering your files into the same photo library or location. Having a system for naming your image files and organising them into a folder structure might seem time-consuming and even slightly outdated, but when it comes to managing your files and being able to move them between hard drives or simply back them up, having a system will be invaluable. You either need to do some digging and tweak where files automatically appear, or simply remember to move them each time they’re added.

#Best way to organize photos on mac iphone lightroom dropbox archive
One of the complications encountered when attempting to unify an archive is that some software programs - operating systems in particular - tend to have already decided that certain folders are the best place for your files. If you currently have your images split between a desktop computer and a laptop, and with insufficient room on either to contain all of your images, it’s probably time to invest in an external drive (details coming up!).Įven if you think you might not need all of the additional space offered by an extra drive once you’ve finished sorting out your duplicates and rejects, you can still make good use of that drive as a backup. This step might mean having to rethink your photo storage. Backups work best when they are consistent and automated, and this process is far simpler once your images have been brought together - and renamed (see below).

Not only will this make it easier to manage, but also far easier to back up.


One of the most important initial steps in taking control of your archive is to gather it into one single location. Given that the number of devices we use seems to increase by the year, it’s easy to find yourself in a situation where your digital images are spread across multiple different locations, making any sense of order almost impossible.
