Digital cameras and phones have made it too easy to take a multitude of pictures of the same subject. It is good to have some easy steps and habits in place to declutter the duplicate digital photos living on our computers.
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Are you behind on the Photo Challenge? Jump in!
- Week 1 A Quick Way to Start Organizing Photos
- Week 2 Time to Organize
- Week 3 More time to Work
- Week 4 How to Organize Digital Photos on computer
- Week 5 Tutorial for Creating Organized Folders for Digital Photos
- Week 6 5 Easy steps to declutter duplicate digital photos
- Week 7 Online Storage Options for Digital Photos
- Week 8 Options for external hard drive and CD/DVD photo backup
Digital cameras and phones have made it too easy to take a multitude of pictures of the same subject. It is good to have some easy steps & habits in place to declutter the duplicate digital photos living on our computers. (Make sure you get the FREE Declutter Journal when you sign up for our newsletter!)
Duplicate digital photos are a nightmare
I noticed this on the last vacation that we took with my parents-in-law and the kids.
We all had cameras.
After we got back home, my mother-in-law shared her photos with me and I(not thinking) downloaded them in to my vacation folders. Suddenly I had doubles, triples and more of the same shots.
It was SO overwhelming.
Sometimes too much of a good thing is a bad thing. Today we start decluttering those photos!
Personally I like to do this after I have downloaded my pictures from my phone and memory card. The reason is that I can see the pictures on the bigger screen better. The last thing I want to do is delete a good picture!
Step 1 Open Folder
In last week's Photo Challenge, we created a folder system that made it easy to locate our photos. You are going to use that system now to start decluttering. Open the most recent folder where you placed your downloaded pictures.
Step 2 View Photos
You can make the photos large by clicking on the icon in the upper right that looks like a photo. A drop down menu will appear and you can adjust the size of your photos. This might not be big enough to see if it is a photo that you want keep. If you need it to be larger, go ahead and double click on the photo.
Step 3 Evaluate Photos
Now you can start to evaluate which photos you want to keep or discard. To scroll through the photos you can use the arrow keys on your keyboard or the arrows below the picture.
Step 4 Delete Photos
The easiest way to delete photos is to hit the Delete key when you are viewing a photo. A message will pop up and ask if you are sure you want to send the photo to the Recycle Bin. Click Yes to complete the delete. Another way to delete is to select batches of photos like when you were moving photos into your folders. If there is a whole section of photos to delete that might be faster than doing it individually.
Step 5 Make a Habit & work backwards
This is not a difficult job if you take a few minutes to declutter the duplicate digital photos every time you download your photos! Also as you work on your current photos you will also want to spend some time working through the older photos you have stored. Pick a year to work on at a time. You can go through it month by month until that year is done!
There you go 5 EASY steps to pare down and declutter your digital photos!
Declutter Journal FREE Printable
Track your progress!
It can be challenging once you shut down the folders on your computer to know what you have decluttered and what you haven't.
To make this process EASY I use a "Declutter Journal" page to track what has been decuttered and when. This works well for current and past photos that you have stored.
Print it & then you can go year by year and know that you are not taking up valuable storage space on your hard drive with unwanted pictures.
If you just found the Photo Challenge then you might want to go check out the first 5 weeks! There are some great ideas for organizing and preserving your all your precious digital and physical photos.
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