How to find all your digital photos: a simple checklist

organize your photos
Written By Allison W. Freedman
 
checklist image
 

The first step in organizing your digital photos is to gather them all in one place. Sounds simple, right? But I can guarantee that you have digital photos in places you either do not know about, or have completely forgotten. Luckily they are not that hard to find if you have a checklist like the one below.

First, why gather them all in one place? Having all of your photos together makes it a lot easier to remove duplicates and organize them. You don’t want to go through all of that work then find another 500 somewhere else that you have to re-run a duplicate finder or sort through.

Gather all of your digital photos in one place

Either using your computer (if you have a lot of space) or an external hard drive, create a folder called “photo hub”. As you locate photos in other places, create a folder for each set and copy the photos onto the hub. Do this for every source. The exception to this is your photos in the software you will end up using for your photo library - for example if you are going to keep them all in Apple Photos there’s no reason to export what’s already there out and then back in.

The digital photos checklist

Here’s where you should look for your digital photos:

Computers:

  • Downloads folder

  • Desktop

  • Dedicated photos folders you have created

  • Email, texts and other messaging platforms

Devices

  • Phones

  • Tablets

  • GoPro

  • Old recording devices

Drives & Things

  • Thumb drives

  • External hard drives

  • Camera cards - don’t forget to check old cameras

  • CDs

  • Check all your junk drawers, backpacks, brief cases, keychains

  • Other old media like floppy discs - photos from these can still be rescued!

Social Media

  • Facebook

  • Instagram

  • TikTok

  • LinkedIn

  • Snapchat

  • Discord

  • Other

Websites

  • SmugMug

  • Flickr

  • Snapfish

  • Shutterfly

  • Team sharing sites

  • Professional photographer sites - photos you have purchased (and perhaps forgot to download…?)

  • Sites you have uploaded so you can print - usually these are photos you probably already have elsewhere, but it’s good to take a scroll through to see if there are any others


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Need help getting your digital photos organized so that you can share and enjoy them? Reach out - we can help!

Allison W. Freedman
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