Need to Sort Online Photos!!

Updated on December 09, 2016
E.B. asks from Sour Lake, TX
8 answers

Let me start by saying I am "challenged" when it comes to computers. I can do the very basics but over the years, I have "saved" countless photos in various folders, just happy that somehow, somewhere, they were "saved". I am ready to sort/delete etc. I am interested if you guys have any idea of the most "user friendly" software (preferably free) that could help me? Thanks so much!!

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M.D.

answers from Pittsburgh on

Are they actually online? Or in various folders on your computer?

If there are in various folders on your computer, which is what it sounds like from your description, here is what I would do.
1. Click on the folder at the bottom of your screen (file explorer shortcut).
2. In there, click on "This PC"
3. In the top right, there is a search bar. Put .jpg in the bar, and press enter. That will bring up a all your pictures files that are saved on your computer.
4. On the top left, click "view"
From here, you can click "Large Icons" to see a small image of each picture to decide what to keep and what to delete.

If you need a more detailed description than this, PM me :)

Once you decide what you want to keep, if you want to make a photo album with very little work, you can upload all the pictures that you kept into Shutterfly and tell it to make a photo album with all the pictures organized by the date taken. You can spend hours customizing, or you can say "Done!" and have it printed. Good luck!

3 moms found this helpful
Smallavatar-fefd015f3e6a23a79637b7ec8e9ddaa6

A.N.

answers from Charlottesville on

If all of your pictures are on your computer, I would strongly recommend that you use the steps noted below to find all of your photos and then copy them to an external hard drive or to an online storage optuon, such as Google drive or Dropbox. If your hard drive or computer we're to crash, then your pictures will still be safe. There may be some cost depending on how many photos you have, but it is much better than losing all of those photos!
As to how to organize, I store my pictures on an external hard drive in a folder named with a date and with a short description of the pictures are from some specific event.

3 moms found this helpful
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M.G.

answers from Portland on

Are you just trying to go through the ones on your computer? And delete the ones you no longer want?

I use Picasa. I'm sure there are newer ones out there, but I just went to the online site for Picasa and installed it (for free) on my PC. I can edit and view pictures easily. So what happens is, I go to the folder where my pictures are, click on one, and it opens in Picasa (it asks you if you'd like this to happen when you use it for the first time). Then you just flip through your photos by clicking on the arrow to the 'next photo'.

I like it. I then upload the ones I want to print to an online site and buy from there.

2 moms found this helpful

S.T.

answers from Washington DC on

my tech-challenged sistah!
i recently got the free version of dropbox, on the recommendation of a bunch of people. i'm sure it's wonderful but i'm having trouble figuring it out.
over the years i've uploaded most of my most precious ones to costco's photo center, where it's free storage so long as you buy something once a year or so. i have them do my christmas cards, so that's taken care of.
now, you don't actually have access to those photos other than to buy prints from costco, so it ain't a perfect response.
i wish i weren't so hopeless at computer stuff.
khairete
S.

2 moms found this helpful
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L.!.

answers from Santa Fe on

An external hard drive is the best answer. Possible 2 of them in case one has a defect the second one you will use as a back up.

Clouds or other online options are not ideal. Lots of people do it but I just don't trust them. You have no control what they do with all your personal information and if they screw it up there is no way to get them back.

Even if you decide on a cloud still keep a external hard drive at home and download not only pictures but everything else from your computer to the drive. Be smart with this. It's so easy to do it once a month at least.

2 moms found this helpful

C.T.

answers from Santa Fe on

This might help you for future photos if you use your phone to take photos like I do. I use my iphone to take all my photos. I have the Google Photos app on my phone and I can create albums really easily. Super easy. There are other apps you can use...just do a search on Photo Apps. Snapfish or Shutterfly both have one where you can create albums for example. Anyway...I can create an album in seconds and it's saved online where I can access it from my laptop if I want. It's a very easy way to store photos. For your photos on your laptop...you can put these all into the same kind of online album. Good luck!

1 mom found this helpful
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N.B.

answers from Oklahoma City on

I had my phone set to sync all my photos to Facebook. I loved it! I would, almost instantly, have access to my photos online and I didn't have to click on the gallery, then the photo, then make it big, then upload it to facebook THEN download it to my harddrive so I could share it...now I have to do all those steps to access my phone photos.

I can't figure out how to manage Memories at all. It makes no sense to me. So I don't have any online photos anymore. I only have my hard drive and have to upload the photos then download them like I said before.

O.H.

answers from Phoenix on

I'm in the same boat! I download all my pics off my phone to a folder on my laptop. Sometimes I'm good at it if we were on a trip and I will name the folder something like: "cruise Oct 2016". But then other times it just gets named the date: 12/9/2016 and then 3,000 random pics get dumped in there. THOSE are the folders I have to go through and delete dumb ones and rename folders according to the holiday or event.

I do have an external hard drive I got several years ago. I think it's huge and was on a major clearance. But then everything saved on there is also under the random folders. I'm wondering if I clean them up on my laptop it will then "save" them correctly on my external hard drive. Does anyone know?

I also read an article once on this and it said to delete duplicates right away and dumb pics you won't care about in 5 years. So I plan on doing that as well.

I don't see the benefit of using some kind of program if you already have them in folders under "My pictures" on your laptop or computer. You will still have to go through them and sort them. I guess if you plan on making photo books or printing them then one of those programs would be a good idea.

Clearly I'm not a good one to give advice but will be following this as well. Good luck to both of us!!!

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