How to Declutter Digital Photos and Escape Overwhelm

Learn tips on how to declutter digital photos systematically to escape overwhelm. Finally enjoy your images instead of dreading them.

With the rise of digital photography, it crept up. The sea of files that where intertwined with the most precious beautiful memories that get lost among it all. Thousands and thousands of photos, some of terrible quality make it hard to weed through the images to find gold.

When photos where taken with film there was a natural limit because each photo cost something. Well, today each photo doesn’t cost money to take, but our peace. Who needs 23 photos of our kid blowing out the birthday candles anyway?

Well I used to think I did. I would frantically snap away to ensure I got the right shot, “knowing” I would delete the bad ones later…only I didn’t.

My old hard drive was littered with blurry images and countless duplicates, that made the printing process painful to say the least. This article will go through some ideas to get you back to a manageable image library that you will actually look at and enjoy.

Choose Quality over Quantity

Delete digital photos that are bad

I bet you can scroll through your phone right now and find images that are either: grainy, blurry, too dark, too light, out of focus, etc. Delete them! I am not saying that they have to be professional grade or anything, but if it is not visually appealing…chances are that is what you will pay attention to when viewing years down the line.

Declutter digital photos you don’t like

Sometimes the image is technically alright by being exposed properly, and it is clear…but you just don’t like it. Photos of people eating, hunched over, or making an unflattering face are not images you or the other person will appreciate looking back on.

There is an exception to that of course! For example maybe you only have one terrible image of the last time you saw a loved one before they passed away. Regardless of the quality, or if you look less than flattering, you may consider keeping that picture for sentimental reasons. Use your best judgement!

Declutter digital photos that are no longer needed

I don’t know about you, but I use my phone to take pictures of paint samples, a new product in the store I want my husband to check out, or even screenshots of various furniture options. There is no reason to keep these types of images for most of us. I guess if you are an avid journaler maybe you might want to add this to a journal page, but if you have no other plans for this type of images, get rid of it!

Declutter digital photos that are duplicates

Speaking of not needing photos anymore. Do we every need countless duplicates of the same moment? I look back at when my first baby was born…and it is literally picture after picture of him laying on the same blanket. Think like a film photographer…instead of snapping away, take your time. Take a breath, and wait for the right shot, maybe take one more…and that’s it! Frantic snapping leads to way to many duplicates. Get rid of images all look basically the same, keep just 1 or 2.

How to avoid digital clutter in the future

Now that you have gone through all of the work to pairing down your digital images, how do we stop it from happening again? You need a system. Just like decluttering your house needs to happen on a regular basis, so does decluttering your digital images.

Be more thoughtful about when you take pictures

As mentioned before under avoiding duplicates, be thoughtful about how many photos you take. In addition to this point consider when you take them. Is it really necessary to have your camera out the entire time during an event? Or can you remember the event with only a few snaps? If you want an extensive gallery of a special party or moment, consider hiring an event photographer and letting them do the culling for you so the images can be made into a nice coffee table book.

Delete during specific set aside times

It is not a bad idea to delete photos when you are “cued” this creates the habit of thinning out your images. Some ideas for times you might want to delete images might be:

At the end of everyday before you put your phone on the charger
When you are the passenger in a car
While the coffee is brewing
When you are waiting for a friend or meeting
Anytime you are on an airplane if you fly frequently
When you are at the coffee shop drive through

You get the picture spend a little time thinking about when your declutter digital photos time will be and implement it. Pretty soon it will be as automatic as brushing your teeth.

Periodically, review images and determine if you need to declutter digital photos again

You may, like me shoot most of your family pictures with a digital camera. Every time, I print a new album or order prints…I like to use this time to narrow my images down even more than past the first cull. Decluttering photos really demonstrates the power of the old phrase “less is more.” When you have chosen good quality images they really shine, especially after all of the bad quality ones are out of the picture!

Do something with your digital photos

A really helpful thought process during the decluttering process is asking yourself what you intend to do with the images you keep. A good practice when managing images is: “use it or loose it.” Are you going to make a collection of images into a coffee table book, gallery wall, craft project, give as a gift, transform into a puzzle?, make a children’s book? Plan to have a family movie and picture night? Share images and reminisce about old memories. The options are truly endless! Have a plan, so that your photos are not taken and stored for no reason. Think about your family now and future generations. How might they enjoy these images?

Set goals and specific deadlines for when you will have pictures decluttered

Of course, it is always a good idea when tackling a large project to set specific goals and give yourself a timeline. A big project like decluttering thousands of digital photos will take some time. Divide the project to smaller tasks and set dates like: I will have decluttered all of my June 2022 photos by the end of the month, have them backed up, and a plan to enjoy them.

picture of man and woman printed on wall

How to declutter digital photos for the nervous type

I am a picture lover, and losing images through a hard drive crash or accidentally deleting the wrong image can be SUCH a bummer! Going through this process might make you feel better if you first back EVERYTHING up on a hard drive that you can set aside and forget about. It is no secret that I am an avid photo back-up enthusiast.

By putting everyone event the cluttered photos on a hard drive, you will the liberty to be more aggressive when choosing the images you truly like. Once you have paired everything down you can deal with that other hard drive, if you desire. You may even find it unnecessary and be completely okay with having that cluttered hard drive stored somewhere, since they take up so little space. I prefer this hard drive for my personal family images and videos. I would definitely set it aside and forget about it since you just spent so much time creating a curated gallery of your memories. The point is so you can manage the photos you have and do something with them. So if you keep the cluttered hard drive completely forget about it do not bring it back out unless necessary.

The last step is back up your files of your new organized pretty hard drive so you can use them and enjoy them!

Summary of how to declutter digital photos

Delete photos that are poor quality
Get rid of photos you just don’t like
Throw out the images you no longer need and duplicates
Stop taking so many images
Create a system for when you will declutter digital photos
Do something with your digital photos-use it or loose it!
Set specific goals about when you will have these projects completed
Back up your culled and organized images in at least three locations