There are different ways to organize folders, photos, and documents.
Organize folder and files that best meets your needs.
It’s easy to drag a photo or file into another collection.
Photo and File Organization Suggestions
Why is Photo Sorting so Difficult?
Our experience has proven that trying to hand sort photos and information is not productive and essentially a waste of time. Why? As you find more photos, sorting get more difficult because you will need more categories. Soon you won’t be able to remember what you have in each category or pile of photos. A group photo can logically go into more than one category but you only hove one photo. So where will you put the group photo? You will also discover the need to handle some photos many times as you decide to move the photo into a different pile.
Using a Sort Collection Makes Photo Organization Easier
Starting to organize photos can be very challenging. You may start looking through a box or old truck full of photos and papers. Your computer may have photos scattered and saved in many different folders. These collections of disorganized photos and information makes it almost impossible to know the best place to start organizing.
A photo found in a chest.
Photo is scanned.
Photo saved in a ‘Sort” collection.
Photo is moved out of the Sort and into a collection.
Mixed Media – Organize Photos by Content
Not by File Type
Consider organizing photos by a topic instead of a date or file type. Grouping different kinds of files in a collection makes it possible present information about a person or topic in more meaningful and interesting ways.
Some file that can be added or imported into a collection.
- Photos
- Videos
- Audios
- PDFs
- Documents
A collection may contain several different kinds of files.
How To Sort Photos
Duplicate images increase as files are added we had forgotten we already have.
Attempting to mange group photos is another way duplicate images are created. One group photo may be copied into several different collections. If there are six people in the photo it seems logical to copy the photo into six other collections. Unfortunately making copies of a group photo doesn’t make it any easier to locate the photo or a person in the photo later and it takes up more hard drive space.
Ways to Find and Eliminate Duplicates
- Use the search option to find photos with the same name or caption,
- Find and only use the photo in one collection with other or related images. Learn More
- Add hot spot tags to group photos and put the group photo in one collection. Learn More
- Use the Heritage Collector Duplicate Search option to find and compare for the same photos in all collection.
Use Unique Folder and Subfolder Names
Different kinds of collections may be stored in folders. This makes it easy to organize, view, and work on a group of related collections.
The collection (right – blue highlight) shows how the Carl Steen Olsen collection is stored in the Olsen Family History folder.
Different Types of Collections
There’s no limit to the number or types of collections that can be created and used. This makes it possible to create a wide variety of collections tailored to meet your organizational needs.
Vacation Collections
Create vacation collections to preserve the memories and experience of a lifetime with photos, videos and audio narrative.
History / Documents
This collection contains documents from an old family farm. Finding and accessing these files will be helpful for genealogy research or creating a written history. You will be able to learn more about the day to day operations of a family farm a a hundred years ago.
By Date and Place
All of the photos were taken in Norway around 1900. and were acquired in Norway. Names, dates and geography may be found the description section of each file.
Graphic Collections
Collect images in a collection. Use these images in other projects such as stories, books, slide shows and calendars.