Why I’m Going Through All Our Photos Now

Do you have a million photos? Do you actually know what’s in all those file folders on your computer? On your phone? In those boxes in the basement? If you do, you’re amazing! If you are like me and have no clue, this post is probably for you.

We are planning to hit the road next fall to travel fulltime with our kids. We are storing some items, including our photos and mementos. I want to make sure that these special items are protected so we don’t lose them all if something happens. Moisture, rodents, bugs, heat, and fire are all dangers to these precious items. I was trying to decide how best to handle them. I decided on scanning all the physical photos and taking photos of any of the bulky mementos/art projects. I haven’t started this portion yet. I have been collecting all of these items into a large chest as I find them. Photos have a way of ending up everywhere. I have found them in random boxes, in books, and of course, photo boxes/albums stuffed full. I will let you know what scanner I decide on when the time comes.

I have been going through all the photos on my computer over the last few weeks. I am deleting duplicates and things that were on my phone for information that I didn’t intend to keep long term. I am making sure that I have copies on my computer and then deleting them off of my phone and the camera memory cards. I wanted to free up some working space on my computer but mainly I wanted to tidy up a bit before scanning all of the physical photos I have been collecting.

I bought a hard drive and will begin transferring a copy of all of them to it after finishing cleaning up the ones on my computer. I plan to store these hard drives with us in the RV, at my Dad’s house, or in a safe deposit box. This will ensure that we have a backup copy of everything in a separate location. Losing all of them was a major worry for me. This made me feel much better.

When I first started this, I thought it was going to be one of my easier undertakings while preparing for this trip. It hasn’t been. It’s been one of the most time-consuming things I have done. It’s simple but so incredibly tedious. I have sat going through one file at a time. They are in monthly folders. I go through a folder, deleting duplicates and unneeded photos. Then I go through that month on my phone and delete anything that is on my computer. Then I go through the camera folders on my computer and do the same thing ending in my memory cards. I have set up a plan to delete them as I move them over in the future.

Then I copy everything over onto my portable hard drive. I keep multiple working files of photos on my computer all the time. I’m not deleting those because I use them. This gives me two copies of everything. Until I started going through all of these files I had no idea the number of useless photos I really had. I have deleted a crazy amount of duplicates and junk! This is something that I should have done more often but never realized. It’s so easy to hoard them when they are just a file on a computer. We have been minimizing so many of our belongings but I never considered all the stuff on my computer and phone until recently. The preparations for fulltime travel are in full swing now. I’ll be updating often about what we are working on.

Trip Countdown: 324 days to go!