Jenn Hallak

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How I organize my [thousands of] photos.

I take a lot of photos -- like hundreds pretty much every day. Excessive? Maybe. Necessary? I think so. Okay so maybe I need to live in the moment a little more often rather than living behind my camera BUT who could blame me with this darling face staring at me every single day? I want to savor every memory, every single day and of course, have lots of shots to look back on as she grows old. Oh yeah, and maybe some to show at her wedding too? But we've got a long way to go for that!

So I get this question a lot, actually and I am going to tell you how I stay organized and why.

How do you organize all of those photos?

There are plenty of programs out there just like it but I use OneDrive and here's why I love it:

- When I save something on my computer it automatically saves into my drive (photos, documents, videos, anything at all). And if my computer were to die on me, everything would be there safe and sound.

- Everything that I place on my computer, I can access right from my phone. That makes posting photos on social media oh-so-simple.

- My husband can access everything too so when he wants to see what Ava and I have been up to, he can click on the app and there it all is!

- Phone storage is no longer an issue. Every photo or video I take on my phone, I add right into the correct folder in OneDrive and that way, I can easily find what I'm looking through AND I never get that dreaded "out of storage" message on my phone when I go to take a photo. (Is it only me who that happens to? I may take too many photos)

So with all of that, here's how I organize my OneDrive folders:

1. Under "Pictures" I've got my business folders, blog submissions and publications, Frank's phone folder, and a folder for Ava:

 

2. Under Ava's folder, everything is divided up by age: pregnancy, her first year, one year old, product photos for the blog, etc.

 

3. And then in "ONE YEAR" everything is separated out by date/activity so I can always find what I'm looking for. And if it's just an everyday photo, I place it in the "other folder."

This all may sound a bit over the top and time consuming but I create everything as I go and upload as I go so really, it's simple. I promise.

And here is why I love the organization so much (besides just being obsessed with organization in my every day life):

Say it's national Snow Leopard day and I want to post a photo of Ava with a snow leopard. All I have to do is click on the "AVA'S FIRST YEAR" folder and then voila! Our trip to the Santa Barbara Zoo is right there. And when Ava is getting married and I want a photo of her in her first wedding, I'll just click on the "9-2-17 Linda + Mike's Wedding" folder (not created yet) and I'll be able to find adorable photos of her as a flower girl!

No scrolling through thousands and thousands of photos to find what I'm looking for!

If you have any questions at all, feel free to message me! Happy organizing y'all!