A Challenge: Clear your iPhone Photos (& get organized!)

Organize Digital Photos

Say this with me:

My phone is not a photo storage device.
It is a PHONE.

As a photographer, I know that photos are our most valuable possessions. They are our life captured, and they are the legacy we want to leave behind.

BUT. I have also come to learn that photos are simply digital files that need managing. That’s not very nostalgic, and it’s kind of blunt to say that about your most treasured memories, I know. But it’s true!

Here’s what I have seen in myself: We LOVE to keep those special images close.

As in, we love to keep ALLL the photos we’ve taken on our phone close to us, actually ON our phone, so we can quickly reference them when we’d like.

But again, say it with me:

“My phone is not a photo storage device. It is a PHONE!!”

I’m telling myself these same words because I FEEL YOU. I’ll give you an example...

Back up to just a few months ago. It was the week I was due with my 3rd baby, and I realized I had not taken my own advice ALL YEAR. I had over 10,000 photos and videos on my phone and I had done nothing with them!

Knowing I was about to take another 10,000 photos of a cute new baby, I knew I had to take action and clean off my phone.

I ran into SO many obstacles.

My computer had a hard time reading all of the images, because there were just SO many. It froze several times, and I even left it plugged in overnight for TWO nights in a row to try to get everything downloaded.

Something was obviously glitchy with my technology, and after a week of downloading them and trying to clear them off my phone, I FINALLY got them all off of my phone and onto my computer.

THEN, the unthinkable happened. The hard drive I was using was overloaded, and it stopped working. I was fearful that I lost all of my beloved personal photos.

I won’t bore you with the details, but after my loving techy husband spent way too many hours helping me (and consoling me through my tears), I could access the hard drive again. I spent time backing everything up, and I still have some work to do sorting and organizing everything, but it was so calming to know everything was safe where it should be, backed up.

Here I am today, 3 months later, and I have 1 more baby and 2,600 more photos on my phone. And now that I’m coming a bit out of the newborn fog, I’m transitioning back to work, and I’m realizing just how quickly time flies, I’m committed to getting BACK on the bandwagon and organizing my photos.

Want to do it with me? Not sure where to start?

You’ve come to the right place!

Start here with my free guide to clearing all your photos off your iPhone.