If you’re overwhelmed by your camera roll, here are some tips on how to organize iPhone photos so you’re only saving your favorites.
Digital photos are a part of life these days. If you have a phone, you probably have thousands of photos to go with it. Some of you may have been downloading the same 20k+ photos from iPhone to iPhone for years! This is both necessary and important because within these photos lie our most precious memories! The emotional attachment is what makes photos so hard to part with. Yet organizing photos can make it easier to find memories, free up space on your phone and cloud storage, and keep everything tidy.
In my Digital Clutter Course, I teach methods to simplify and organize all of your digital clutter, photos included. The more organized your camera roll is, the easier it is to actually re-live and share your memories. In this post, I’ll go through a few methods and apps to help you organize iPhone photos more effectively.
You may also like: How To Manage iCloud Storage
How to Organize iPhone Photos
1. Use Albums
While I would not recommend putting every photo you take into an album, I do think your most cherished memories are best grouped in albums! This makes it easier to save them for the future (if you get a new phone, for example) or locate them quickly to share with others. I have albums on my phone for family pics (only the best ones), home renovation before and afters (for sharing on the go), and beauty (for using for Instagram). The downside to albums is that creating one is a manual process, and you might forget to add more over time. But the upside is it will be the most curated for you.
How to create an album:
- Open the Photos app.
- Tap Albums > New Album.
- Name the album and select photos to add photos to an album.
- You can create themed albums like “Vacations,” “Family,” or “Pets.”
2. Utilize the Favorites Heart
A much quicker way to save favorites is to simply use the favorites feature in iPhone. This is so easy to do. A lot of people use this to save their memories all in one Favorites album and not worry about manually sorting them.
- Tap the heart icon on any photo to add it to the Favorites album.
3. Use The Built-In Smart Search
Another less hands-on way to find photos fast is by using smart search. You can type anything into the search bar and iOS will pull up great matches.
- Tap Search in the Photos app.
- Type in keywords like “beach,” “dog,” “birthday cake,” or “Bald Head Island” to find both recently added photos or very old ones you’re hunting for!
There are also some programmed Utilities shortcuts like receipts, handwriting, illustrations, and QR codes that may help you find photos you’ve saved OR help you quickly remove photos you don’t want to store.
4. Remove Duplicates
To save space and quickly clean up your camera roll, the Photos app can also detect duplicates. I had 36 on my phone! This most often happens because I take a photo and then send it back to my phone to post on social media. Whatever the case, I can’t think of any reason to save duplicates! Luckily this built-in utility lets you find them and merge them into one in just a few clicks.
How to find duplicates:
- Open Photos > Scroll to Utilities > Duplicates.
- Select the photos you’d like to merge.
5. Customize your Photos app
In the more recent upgrade for iOS 18, the Photos app got a makeover. It’s been a bit harder to find your favorites and other albums. But did you know you can customize it so it feels more like the old app? At the very bottom of the photos app, tap “Customize & Reorder” and you can choose the albums and collections you see and which order they appear. I definitely did not need “Wallpaper Suggestions” cluttering up my app! And I don’t use shared albums so I hid those, too. Knowing how to organize albums in the order I want makes it easier to put the ones I access most at the top.
6. Don’t Back Up Your Photos
This is a strong opinion I have that I teach in my course: don’t back up your photos library. The reason is this: I take about 20,000 photos a year. Most of those are not worth saving. They’re blurry, duplicates, screenshots, bad photos, or simply moments not worth saving, such as a photo of an outfit to send to a friend. Thus, I only save the VERY BEST photos I take and I take them off my phone and store them in Dropbox. That way when I get a new phone, I start fresh with only the albums I choose to carry over. It’s hard to wrap your brain around this method, but as long as you stay on top of the “very best” upload, you don’t have to worry about losing any memories. We’ll talk about apps you can use in the next section!
7. Delete Unwanted Photos
But even if you aren’t going to backup your photos in the cloud, it’s still good practice to regularly delete photos like screenshots, blurry shots, or unnecessary images. As mentioned above, the Utilities feature can make it easy to bulk delete old screenshots. I also try to delete on the spot if I take three videos and know the first two were not the clip I needed. The more you can stay on top of it, the better off you’ll be. There are also some great apps that help with this process – see below!
What Are The Best Apps To Organize Photos On iPhone?
Adobe Lightroom
Adobe Lightroom is my app of choice for sorting and editing the best photos to save in my Dropbox for the long term. I do a sorting process weekly, and it has both photo and video sync directly from my iPhone so the new photos I’ve taken since my last sort are waiting for me upon open. It is a paid service because it has advanced editing, but for how I use it, it’s well worth the price. I also resize my photos before exporting to Dropbox to save so they take up less space.
Google Photos
While the Photos app is getting better and smarter with things like face recognition and search, Google Photos has been the most organized free photo app for years. It’s a great place to store your precious memories (while letting all your unimportant photos delete when you get a new phone).
Dropbox
While Dropbox lacks the smart sorting and search features of Google Photos, it’s my go-to for long-term photo storage because I also use it for files and computer things, so for me it’s an all-in-one paid cloud-based storage center. Fewer apps = simplicity. You also get a TON of storage, so videos and high res photos are easily saved. I export my Lightroom photos to Dropbox for long-term savings.
Daily Delete
By far the best photo sorting app is Daily Delete. Daily Delete is an app that helps users organize and declutter their photo collection by reviewing photos taken on specific days. It uses AI to help users decide which photos to keep and which to delete. It is a paid subscription, but I do have a promo code to share: KATH20OFF.
Slidebox
I don’t have personal experience with Slidebox, but it’s made to help you clean up and organize your photos. Quickly favorite, delete, and organize photos in albums with intuitive gestures. There is both a free and paid version.
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