Decluttering vs printing digital photos

A more general question to you photography buffs and silver foxes: how many images do you print, vs store online, vs delete entirely? How many old print photos have you thrown out with time? I’m torn between wanting to keep files online for the sake of less clutter vs wanting to print photos for fear of file corruption.

Artistic merit aside, I find that the act of taking a photo helps me remember the place, so when I look at a photo I’ve taken, I can sometimes project myself in that moment. For this reason, I’m trying to find a balance between whether I should print my digital photos, and if so, how many?

KonMari enthusiasts promote digital as a clutter-free option, but I suspect the files will be corrupted over time, as they have been with my videos c 2005-2010. I wonder whether I’ll miss having print photos in 30 years to jog my memory. Any thoughts? How do you strike a balance? There’s nothing like a photo library of 10k+ to encourage decision fatigue.

7 years ago

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10 replies

Latest reply was from delurked

rachylou

Veteran

Digital will be lost over time. Trust me. That said, I don’t print my digital photos and don’t throw out my printed ones. And I scan photos that are fading.

7 years ago

Runcarla

Veteran

Gradfashionista, to keep and how to store stuff like pictures is, I think highly personal. Some folks lament lost photos more than any other possession after a fire or flood, and others never look back.

All the photos that DH and I have taken over the years have been edited down to fit in one shoebox. 2 shoeboxes hold every negative in a marked and dated envelope. There are a couple of albums with photos from early years of the children and some albums from grand adventure trips. No one in the family (20 something sons included) show any interest in revisiting the photos or lament the ones that have been tossed. The only person to look at them has been me, when I made a project of editing them down for storage.

DH has not dealt with a large box of photos from his parents estate even though it has been 15 years since they died. He doesn't look at them either.

I'm not a sentimental person and have little attachment to 'things', so I don't anticipate missing the old photos.

Maybe put together a collage or album with a set number of choice images for each year to serve as your visual diary? I have no idea on how best to store images for posterity.

7 years ago

kkards

Veteran

when we downsized my mom this summer, we ended up throwing out tons of scenery only pictures, and keeping all the pictures with people in them....
re the storage issue, i think the most important pictures should be stored in the cloud and your favorites on your wall...the rest, store were ever its the easiest and cheapest.....

7 years ago

Liz

Veteran

Because you already have 10k plus photos, my suggestion is to get ruthless about deleting and throwing away. Nobody can possibly curate or treasure that many images unless it's your full-time job. I've watched many of my older women relatives agonize over how to organize the myriad photo albums and boxes of photos that they feel obligated to make sense of but that their kids don't care about. And that was before digital photos.

What I've seen: after a few decades, the photos of scenery, sites, locations, trips, and people other than immediate family don't matter. Any photos of unidentified people get thrown away. Pictures of scenery, places, or events get thrown away. And of pictures of immediate family family, I only want a few. I don't need/want a thousand pictures of my own childhood, much less of my brothers'. It's nice to have one picture of that time my aunts and cousins came to visit. I don't need more than that.

7 years ago

anne

Veteran

I tend to agree with Rachy on the impermanence of digital. Not that I have printed stuff out for ages.

7 years ago

Barbara Diane

Veteran

I have not yet done this, but, I recommend having your favorite/ most meaningful photos easily available for effortless enjoyment. On walls, tables, in album(s) left out on the coffee table, etc. These can be copies so you have a set that isn’t fading. Fun but not precious loose photos can be in an open box or bowl where they can be easily flipped through, and the photos can be changed. Holiday photos at holidays, etc.

Important photos should be backed up. My parents have copies of many of my special occasion photos but after they die I will ask my brother in another state to keep some for me. I have friends who lost everything in a fire, pre-digital, and I would hate to lose photos I have no way of replacing.

My daughter-in-law and my other son’s fiancé have enjoyed looking at family photos and videos that hadn’t been seen in years.

And I inherited a photo flip thing I had given my grandmother. It is a moment frozen in time, and people often flip through it when they come over.

Digital photos- spend a few minutes a day and pick the best and delete the rest. I do like a series of something, so you don’t always have to save just one.
Print out ones you’d enjoy looking at.

To me, one of the important questions are, do I have the space to store something and not feel overwhelmed by it? And how much time do I want to devote to it? I have a lot of photos. I want to enjoy them more and have them take up less space. But also, I don’t want to spend a lot of time on it.

I took a lot away from Marie Kondo. But I don’t agree with all of it. For example, I go through cycles with items so I don’t get rid of everything just because it doesn’t bring me joy this minute. I have a pretty good idea of what will bring joy again. Or, let’s face it, be useful. I expect my future grandkids will enjoy photos of their parents at their same age, etc. just as I wish I had more photos and stories of my ancestors.

Long. Oh, well.

7 years ago

gradfashionista

(website)

Veteran

I actually don’t have any print photos in my home—not even on the walls—and those that are at my parents’ are few in number.

(FYI Mac users, it’s a curse trying to delete photos from personal devices without deleting them from the iCloud—the iCloud isn’t intended for storage but for synching.)

7 years ago

Anonymous

We are scanning pictures in and then putting them on thumb drives. Someone gave us one of those picture frames that you insert a thumb drive and it shows the pics. We put in a new one each week or so. Great way to view them

7 years ago

Anonymous

I tackled this issue a few years back. First I scanned all old photos (pre digital photos) into my pc (I have some family photos from the late 1800s and early 1900s that I am holding onto - Apparently, they can fetch some good money at auction). I have all photos stored online and on a backup drive.

Next I went through all photos (we did print digital photos in the beginning when digital photography was still new, but have not done so in a while) and selectively pulled out the better ones that I wanted to hold onto. I made sure that each photo was identified by date/location/ people if needed. So I have all printed photos stored in photo boxes and have approximately 3 boxes with photos. I want to mention that I am holding onto these for my DD who can do whatever she wants with them someday.

My major project was to take these photos and make books out of them that tell a story. I use Shutterfly (my photos are stored there as well). I have a book about me and my family history. I made one for my DH and his family history. A wedding book for me starting when DH and I started dating through our honeymoon. I then made photo books of my DD which covers each year since birth through college graduation. Finally, I make photo books for each year that covers vacations and important events. In each book I detail where we were, a history behind the places we go, what we did, etc.

What I found is that these photo books take up a lot less room than photos themselves and I can easily find anything because of the dates that I include on the cover of the books

As DH and I cleared out his family's home a couple of years ago, we found tons of photos stored in large boxes, with absolutely no info on them such as dates, places, people. Such a shame, as we destroyed about 99% of these photos and just kept the ones of his parents and him when they were younger (My MIL could never find photos of DH when he was younger because they were just thrown into boxes willy nilly).

Also,for DD I made digital scrapbook pages (printed these pages out) for her starting when she was an infant, highlighting the important aspects for each year. I continued until she graduated college (This is in addition to the Shutterfly books). She regularly looks through these and loves that she has such a great remembrance of her childhood.

Yes, the process took me a long time (several years), but I got great pleasure in reminiscing and deciding which photos were worth holding onto. I even took my old VHS family tapes and converted them to dvd where I edited out the not so good footage and inserted titles/captions (these are also backed up to a backup drive).

~ and if anyone is wondering, I am the "creative" type and take great pleasure in doing these things.

7 years ago

delurked

Veteran

Like Danusia, I recently made a couple of targeted photo books. It requires more editing to get the favorites, and leaves a smaller footprint. Also, it makes a lovely present.

7 years ago

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