I just checked, and I officially have 1,648 photos and videos currently on my phone. This is an issue, people. And I’m fairly positive I’m not the only one. As a photographer, the funny thing is – my personal photos rarely get the time and attention they deserve.

When I first began photographing weddings, I took no less than 4,000 photos on a wedding day. Then I sorted them down to around 1,500 to deliver to my client.

Who in the world has the time to do anything with 1,500 photos?!

After being in this business for years, and after being a normal human being with a full schedule and a full life, I wish I knew this one, beautiful truth about photography:

Less is more.

Photo by Elizabeth Tate

That’s why we treasure our grandparents’ photos, right? There are only a few sacred images we get to cling to.

Less is more.

That’s why we never ever do anything with the photos on our phone. It’s just plain overwhelming.

Less is more.

So if you are overwhelmed with all of your photos – remember that simple truth: less is more. You don’t have to document every tiny moment or every tiny thing. Just the highlights will do. Your kids, your spouse, and YOU will appreciate the gift of quality over quantity if you embrace this!

Photo by Elizabeth Tate

The Legacy Photo System is separated into 3 Phases:

1. Your Printed Photos
2. Your Digital Photos
3. Your Photos Moving Forward

In this post, I’ll only be focusing on Phase 2: Your Digital Photos! Here is a brief overview of what needs to happen to organize all of your digital photos:

1. Purchase ONE external Hard Drive (2TB or more) to store all your digital images on. Check out my suggestions in my Hard Drive highlight on Instagram!

2. Put a File Folder System in Place (see images below)

3. Gather ALL of your digital images and put them onto that external hard drive, in order by date and folder

4. Back them up

The most important aspect of this system is the file folder system! If you don’t purchase a Master Hard Drive and follow a Master Filing System for organizing your photos, all of your digital photos will stay on several different computers and laptops, taking up space on your iPhone, old CD’s, USB’s, and scattered hard drives.

So HERE IS MY MAGIC SAUCE!! Take a peek at my File Folder Organization System:

As you can see, everything is organized by Year, then Event (by month).

Now let’s pause and talk about that “Event.” Maybe it’s Father’s Day, maybe it’s a beach trip, maybe it’s Disney World, maybe it’s just life at home. No matter what it is, you still need to organize those photos within that event!

For example, if I take 100 photos at my kid’s birthday party, I’m never going to go back and really enjoy all 100 photos. I’d like to keep and enjoy 10-15 or so. That’s when it’s important to organize your Event Folder into 3 parts:

1. Originals (the place I dump all 100 photos)
2. Picks (the place I drag the 10-15 absolute favorite images)
3. The Event Folder (the FINAL folder of edited and re-named photos)

You can see below my personal event folder for our “Snow Day” a few years ago:

A few KEY tips for you to remember as you organize your digital photos:

• Gather all images from all over the place (laptops, phones, computers, CD’s, USB’s, etc) and put them onto ONE hard drive: your new most prized possession!

• You have to remember to also back those images up! I use Dropbox to back up my Final Event Folders only.

• It’s helpful to create the entire file folder system on the Hard drive first, then drag your images into the properly organized folders.

• You’ll be more likely to enjoy and print your digital images (even the ones on your phone!) when you have them organized!

Happy Organizing! To learn more about organizing your printed photos and establishing a system moving forward (so your phone isn’t so out of control), look into my Legacy Photo System course!

After getting a million questions on instagram, I figured I would compile a list of some of my favorite resources for organizing your photos!

Printed Photos

Photo Boxes from Container Store (Bigso Stockholm office Letter Box) : I love these because they are beautiful colors and lovely to touch! I don’t love using plastic boxes - I like something that feels and looks lovelier than plastic! Something I’m proud to display. (You can find some various colors on Amazon HERE and HERE!)

Mpix : professional quality lab without having to be a professional photographer to make an account. Order standard size prints (4x6, 5x7, etc) and they are delivered to your door.

Artifact Uprising : Where I print my family yearbooks. I cannot say enough good things about this company. I love their mission, their quality, and their heart behind their work! We use the 8.5 x 8.5 for our family yearbooks, always choosing a different color of linen for the cover. I also use this company for printing fun square prints and I’ve had my eye on their new color series photo books and their baby board books.

Parabo Press: Another great place for printing square prints, and I really love their photo displays - especially their wood poster rails and their engineer prints.

Digital Photos

My favorite Hard Drives:
2TB Samsung SSD Portable Hard Drive is my first recommendation, because it’s a solid state drive. It’s a little more expensive, but it’s smaller, more reliable, and lasts longer.
The The Lacie Rugged 2TB is my 2nd recommendation. It’s a traditional hard drive that is shock resistant 🙌🏻, and I love that it’s orange because it’s easy to find! To learn the difference between a Solid State Drive and a Hard Drive, head to my instagram highlight to learn more. (In a nutshell, Solid State drives are made with plates and not coils, they last longer, and they are much more reliable and less likely to break when you drop it!) No matter which one you go with, be sure to check what connection works best for your computer! (USB - C, USB 2.0 or USB 3.0, etc)

Get your Photos off of your Phone Guide - this is a free guide I put together to show you how I get all of my photos off my phone on a regular basis!

Dropbox - This is what I use to back up my photos online. (Disclaimer : I don’t back up ALL of them - I back up the final events. Meaning, my final, favorite, edited photos from events in my life.)

Google Photos App - Install this app to automatically back up the photos on your phone!

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want a FREE, more in depth CLASS ON HOW TO ORGANIZE YOUR PHOTOS?

Click Below!

What are your favorite resources for organizing your photos? I’d love to hear in the comments!

*Affiliate links are used in this blogpost

I have this crazy idea.

A lot of us have some extra free time right now that we don't normally have and we don't know what to do with. Now, I know some of you are working a normal schedule, but some of us just have some extra time. For me, I've just been losing hope. When my calendar isn't filled, and I can't plan my summer, and all of my events are canceled, I just start to feel down. It's just weird canceling everything that's been on our calendars all year. It's just a weird time that we're living in.

My crazy idea is this, I want to invite you to take on a project with me. I'll lead you through it, but this project is going to give you purpose and hope. I guarantee you it's a project that you've been needing to do for years, and it's something that you can tackle in this weird season. I feel like if we come out on the other side and you say, "Hey, I've done this thing," you're going to feel really good and really proud of yourself. I'll teach you all about it. I'll lead you through it.

This is it:

Tackling, and organizing your photos!

Yes, the thousands of photos that you have on your phone. The photos that you have strewn all over your home in different boxes, on random hard drives, all of them. I'll walk you through it step by step. I'll give you a game plan moving forward. Sign up for your free spot in my online class where I'm going to teach you all about how to do this on Wednesday, April 15th at 2 PM Eastern!

I will be there live and in person. It might be the most unprofessional janky online class I've ever done because my kids are probably going to be there watching a movie in the background just like you. I think that we're all in this together, so I know you'd have grace for me in that.

I just wanted to give all of us something that we can do that's really worth our time during this weird season, something that can kind of give us hope and purpose.