In an attempt to get my basement organized, I started going through some old photos. Printing photos is a bit of a lost art. I am part of that quasi-generation that’s technically a millennial, but does not identify as one. I grew up without internet, didn’t get a cell phone until I was 18, and watched the digital age bloom while in college. My high school projects were saved to floppy discs (some of which are probably dying a slow death in my basement), texting cost .10 per message, you called your friends on nights and weekends, and I joined Facebook long before most of the population – back when you had to have a college email to do so. A humorous side note: I remember my first Facebook password (don’t worry, I haven’t used it since) tiasgc. It stood for: This Is A Silly Generation Craze. Good thing I didn’t go into fortune telling. And also – how do I remember this, and not what I had for lunch yesterday?
So what does this equate to in the disaster I call my basement? Boxes of actual photographs you can touch and a helluva lotta digital photos – on external hard drives I hope haven’t failed, CDs, computers, my phone, and even in a cloud! More on that later.
So in my quest to get organized, I wanted to get a handle on all.the.photos. My end goal is ultimately photos and/or digital photobooks for myself and each of the kids. I was super frustrated with myself because my printed and digital photos alike have undergone years of neglect. I blame the children. But the truth is, I’m overwhelmed. I can recall many times over the last handful of years thinking, I really need to get on it. And big surprise, I didn’t. So they just kept piling up, God knows where. Who’s with me?
I started hauling boxes upstairs this past week. My mom said, “You know Kylie, you could have started this last March (beginning of COVID) and you’d still be doing it.” Yeah, I probably would - that’s how big of a project it is. I figure there’s no time like the present, right? And if I’d created a system years ago, I’d have a handle on it now. I’m attempting to organize over a decade’s worth of photos and memories, but even if you simply set up a system from this day on, and completely ignore the past – at least in 5 or 10 years you’re not looking back at 15 or 20 years of unorganized chaos.
So, where to begin? I scoured Pinterest looking for the best ways to organize and sort both types of photos. I will share how I’ve gotten started and if you want to follow along for the next 3 years or so, I can share how it all comes together 😉. So far, I’ve been alternating between getting a handle on the printed photos, and when I want to burn them all and forget it, I work on some digital organization… until I want to throw my computer through a window, and the cycle begins again.
The Prints
This was only the beginning of the printed photos…
Many years ago, when I relocated my photo albums my mom had so diligently put together when I was young (thank you, and also to my brother: yours are still available for pickup at mom and dad’s), I made an attempt at reorganizing the non-archival albums into photo-safe storage boxes. Now I’m left with a collection of these semi-organized childhood photos, massive amounts of prints from my college years in envelopes and zip loc baggies (yes we actually printed photos back then – even when we took them on a digital camera!), professional prints of my kids, snapshots of the boys, older photos my Grandma gave me, and random snapshots printed for frames.
Scattered among the photos are also cards and notes from dear friends, some of whom I am still very close, and some maybe not so much. I have yet to come across the hundreds of notes I’d pass in 6th grade (and get caught and end up with lunch detention for), but I’m holding out hope they’re buried in a memorabilia bin somewhere. And as I was going through so many photos, it solidified to me the importance of printing actual photos. Without a physical reminder, many memories become much easier to forget. Many friends received texts or snaps over the past week as I uncovered a lot of gems in my printed photos.
Like this one of my best friend and I, that’s basically us to a T:
A lot of the blogs I read online suggested purging photos as you organize. And I’ll be honest – I gave that a hard pass – ain’t nobody got time for that. And really, even with the massive amounts of photos I have – they take up relatively little space. The storage boxes from a previous organization attempt hold literally thousands of photos. Maybe someday I will go through them, especially the ones before I got married - that I already have wonderful scrapbooks made from (presumably leaving all the “extras” or “non-favorites”) and get rid of some – but I’ll save that for the next pandemic (hopefully never).
Sure enough, as I’m laying out photos, all the kids want in on the action. They loved looking at them, and I know they’ll love having albums of their own as well. Even if I have a midlife crisis trying to get them all together. Even if it is all their fault.
The Digital Disaster
Am I the only person who sometimes absolutely hates technology? I swear I was born in the wrong decade. Trying to get a handle on this digital mess makes me want to grab a film roll (do they still sell those?) and an old school camera and tell the cloud to F off.
For at least the past 4-6 months or so, my phone has been completely out of storage. Like zilch. There was a day I was forced to delete my banking app so I could use google maps to run an errand. I haven’t had Facebook on my phone in months. Friends would send me photo messages that wouldn’t download. Using apps on my phone was sorta like a digital game of Russian Roulette. Need to take a photo? Buh bye banking. Want to check Pinterest? See ya Instagram. You get the idea. Pretty much the only apps spared from this super fun game were ones I knew I couldn’t recover passwords for if I had to redownload.
So to start the digital journey, priority number one is to get my photos off my phone – because unsurprisingly, like many, they’re taking up the bulk of my storage. Turns out easier said than done. I mean really, is it so much to ask that I be able to simply CONNECT my phone to my laptop with a USB CORD and COPY the PHOTOS onto the HARD DRIVE? Apple: are you listening? I mean c’mon that’s the most intuitive thing ever. And my brand new laptop has ample FREE storage for all these photos. But alas, that does not work. Why? I can’t entirely say – but after more google searching than I care to admit, I think it’s because unbeknownst to me, I had iCloud Photos and optimizing storage both turned on, apparently making a simple download impossible.
Here’s where it gets sticky. As soon as I think I have something figured out, I read or try something else, and I get confused and realize I’m not sure how it’s actually working. Have I mentioned I sometimes hate technology? As much as I need my photos off my phone, I am paranoid about losing any, because obviously I need the 78 selfies or 36 photos of my backside in the kitchen my toddler took.
The way I see it, I had a few options. If all the photos had backed up to the cloud (which, by the way, is also full, and therefore no longer backing up), I could download the iCloud app to my laptop and I think it would download to my hard drive. I actually tried this about a month ago. It took 4 entire days to download (I am not exaggerating), and anytime I try to access the photos, it takes a long time to load the previews, and I’m now realizing it probably didn’t capture the photos that hadn’t backed up - I’m really not sure.
UPDATE After retrieving the photos from iCloud via the web (described later), I deleted them from the cloud. The first set of photos I thought were saved on the hard drive deleted on their own. (Good thing I didn’t trust it!)
If all photos are in the cloud, you could leave them there as well. However, I prefer to store them on my hard drive, and want to organize and print them – so I need to make the cloud rain! It’s possible they can be organized in the cloud and I just don’t know how. However, iCloud doesn’t have unlimited storage, so they’re going to need to come off there eventually anyway.
Now, you may be wondering – if these photos are in the cloud already, why don’t I just delete them from my phone and free up space? The answer: because that would be too easy. There’s actually a couple reasons. The first being that not all my photos are in the cloud. The 2nd is more important and relevant for everyone: if you have iCloud turned on for photos, if you delete the photo from your phone, it deletes it from the cloud, and vice versa. You’re welcome.
Armed with all this knowledge, I decided to give Amazon Photos a try. We already pay for a Prime membership, so Amazon Photos offers free unlimited storage for photos and 5GB of video storage. With the app on your phone, you can upload photos automatically to the Amazon cloud in real time. This is great news if you lose your phone – all your photos are backed up! The bad news being you now have 37 selfies of your 3year old backed up before you have a chance to delete them from your phone 😊 Once the photo is in Amazon Photos, unlike iCloud, you are now free to delete them from your phone without losing it for good. This seemed like the most efficient way to “get” my phone photos. I had actually started this process previously, but had connectivity issues and eventually – you guessed it – had to delete the app. So once I said farewell to my banking app yet again, I redownloaded Amazon photos.
After an overnight download, I was surprised to find of my nearly 12,000 photos on my phone (no wonder I’m out of storage!), over half failed to upload. Cue the google search. After the better part of a day (I wish I was kidding) I deciphered that I can once again thank iCloud. Photos that had saved to iCloud and were optimized on my phone (I think*) ended up not uploading to Amazon Photos. Now if it was a small amount I’d probably chalk it up to the culling process (ignorance is bliss), but we’re talking about over SEVEN THOUSAND photos. Kill me. After more googling, I figured out how to access my iCloud online and logged in – hey guess what photos appeared?!
So, the good news is, all my photos from my phone are on a cloud. Bad news is I can’t free up my phone storage until I download those on iCloud. All 7,580 of them. Aye aye aye. I downloaded 20 photos to start and I think it took the better part of 30 minutes. Trying again later, it was much faster, so it’s anyone’s guess how long this will take. Technology. So, I’ll meet you back here in 3-5. Days, months, years, only time will tell.
I’m sure you’re all on the edge of your seats – so buckle up, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride! I’ll be sharing more specifics on how I’m organizing prints and digital photos soon. In the meantime, don’t expect I’ll receive any picture texts 😉 Thanks for hangin in there with me. Be sure to let me know any tips or tricks you’ve found and feel free to join me on the journey!
More Notes on Amazon Photos
Information on Amazon Photos can be found here
If you sign into a different account on the photo app, (like your spouse’s) it will upload them there, even if it’s already uploaded them to your account; however, it will not upload a photo twice to the same account. Don’t ask me how I know.
You can create groups in Amazon and share photos with other Amazon users (even if they’re not Prime members). I plan to do this with photos to share with my sister-in-laws. You can also create a Family Vault with a limited number of family members, and also give them free storage, even if they’re not prime members.
More Notes on iCloud Photos
iCloud Photos info here and here
I still don’t fully understand iCloud Photos. Shocker.
Here’s what I know or assume based on what I’ve read and tried. While probably boring, I wanted to share in case anyone else has the same issues, it may be useful.
Among the photos that didn’t upload to Amazon, was a particular vacation photo. This photo was on iCloud, and still showed an image, presumably the optimized version, on my iPhone. So I know Amazon did not upload optimized versions. However, based on the download progress screens in the Amazon app, If I was uploading to Amazon while storage was still available on my phone, Amazon would download the full version from iCloud and then upload it. But alas, since I’m out of storage, I’m out of luck.
Once my photos had been uploaded to Amazon Photos, I left iCloud and photo optimization both on. I took a brand new test photo (thank you tiny smidge of storage that disappeared hours later). Amazon uploaded it automatically. Based on this and info from the link below, I concluded that photo optimization is only an issue when utilized, and Apple determines which photos are optimized and when. I was going to turn iCloud off (because clearly it’s the devil) but I got a message I didn’t quite understand and didn’t want to do something that would delete the photos still sitting in my iCloud before I had a chance to download them permanently to my hard drive.
I began downloading from the cloud (via the online platform) and deleting once downloaded. These specific photos on my phone are not deleting. I’m not sure if there’s a disconnect with syncing, or if this is because I’m deleting full versions of the photos from the cloud and it’s the optimized versions on my phone.
There is a way to create albums that can be shared and added to by others using this platform as well (although I have not looked into this at all).
Going Forward
Once my phone photos are deleted (after those pesky iCloud ones are downloaded to my hard drive) I could discontinue using Amazon Photos. I would have plenty of storage on my phone and assuming I get in the habit of regularly downloading images from iCloud, I wouldn’t run into the same issues. If I turn iCloud off altogether, I *think* I could do a straight USB import. However, I do like the idea of having a backup in case I lose my phone, before I have a chance to download them to my computer.
Once again, it’s the unlimited free photo storage, and automatic backup (without deletion) that sways me to the Amazon way of doing things. My kids often have my phone, and I know the chance of deleting a photo before it’s permanently backed up is very low, since mine is set to backup anytime it’s connected to WiFi. While I’ll still use iCloud to backup my phone, I will exclude Photos from doing so. And I’m making a note in my planner each month to go through photos/backups/etc so I never get behind again!