Easy Steps to Backup and Sort Your Photos

Photos = Stories = Memories

I have a gazillion photos both digital and hard copies. Photos are my memories. They remind me of my journey and the people and events that have shaped who I am today. I recently got this message from a friend:

Help… I need to sort my photos from like from over 10 years ago. Is there an app that can help… What is the best way moving forward?

Storage Goal 🎯

I’m constantly looking for better and cheaper (not easy!) ways to store my photos. I think it’s good to store photos on at least 3 different drives (because drives do get corrupted).

1. On the Cloud drive #1
   • Google, pCloud, iCloud, Dropbox – Any one of these paid platforms can serve as your permanent storage
   • Initial storage is free
   • Convenient but I’m always concerned about ownership and privacy of my photos on the Cloud
   • They can get hacked or hopefully not used to feed AI! 😱
2. Permanent portable hard drive #2 MAIN (SSD hard drives are more stable)
3. Hard drive #3 Backup

Step ONE. Backup from phone to drive

1. Auto sync photos to Google Drive (hence forth when I refer to Google drive, it can mean any Cloud drive)
2. Copy photos to a miniSD card (if your phone allows it) AND/OR
3. Copy photos to a 2-in-1 flash drive
4. The miniSD and flash drive serve as a backup. They are temporary storage in case you delete photos while copying/transferring photos here and there. You can delete them after you are done.

Step TWO. After backing up, sort out photos on Google drive

1. I find it easier to sort out photos on my large screen desktop than on my tiny mobile phone screen
2. Deleted photos in Google drive do not count as part of your drive storage
3. Create Albums for each event eg. Philippines Trip 2026
   • Main album (this is for ALL photos)
   • Spare photos (the not-so-nice photos that I don’t mind deleting)
   • Sub-events: eg. by location (Quezon City) or projects (Farming)
4. Note that when you delete photos from your Google albums, they do not get deleted, they only get removed from the album
5. To delete a photos completely, you must delete it from the MAIN photo storage

Step THREE. Download photos from Google drive to your Portable Hard Drive (Main Permanent Storage)

Step FOUR. Backup your Portable Hard Drive (2nd storage in case main storage fails)

Step FIVE. Delete photos from your phone to make space for new memories after you have backed up everything on your drives.

I have a part TWO of this blog. Enough said for today.

Do you think my idea will work for you? I know it’s a lot of steps. If you have a ton of money, you can just keep paying for more and more Cloud storage. I’d love to hear how you store your photos.