Keep or toss?

Keep. Just think of the old 8 track tapes and about wonderful old photos! You never know what the future will bring! I am voting Yes as keep.

 

Unless you truly don't want to move them (and I totally get that), then keep them. My issue with all of my digital photos is the future: what happens when I'm gone? Will my kids be able to access my digital content? I like knowing I have print versions of important photos (I don't print every photo). Is it possible to go through and throw out duplicates or blurry pics, so you have, like, a more curated collection of prints?

 

I agree with Sara... go through them and throw out duplicates and if you have time, organize them while doing so. I did that in October. During my basement purge, I found pictures down there and had bunches up here as well. I took the time to go through them, purge duplicates and organized them. They are now all in one place. Since I had Mom's photos as well (as a family, we made duplicates for others all the time), I had lots of really old photos that were duplicates. I had scrapped many of these traditionally and I even pulled out those scrapbooks and double checked photos to see if they had been scrapped. If they had, out they went.

Some of these have been scanned but many have not. Another project for another day.

 

I think your idea about making the list of which are keepers and what to toss is perfect. I couldn’t throw them all out but there’s definitely a bit that need to go!

 

That is pretty much what I did!

It did bring back a lot of happy memories while doing it. An added bonus.

 

good post! I need to go through my photos too, have a lot from my mom and my aunt, quite a few heritage photos, so this will help me to think about what to keep!!

 

I'd probably try to save some, but toss most. Even if you don't do it before the move. But, what criteria would you use is the real question?

For a mid-sized cull, I'd probably curate like an album - group by event, and then only keep what you need to tell the story, represent everyone who was there, and then only keep the best shots.

For a massive cull, I'd keep only photos that would be meaningful to those I'd pass them along to (eventually). In fact, I might try to pass them along right now.

 

I like this thought, but will your kids care about who's in the print photo? Are they labelled?

 

I'm so the opposite. If it's scanned and backed up I've tossed them. We have some photos hanging around the house that I update every so often. But my son prefers to watch the google photo stream on our google home or look at the printed books with the stories. He doesn't care about the individual photos.
It's a reminder for me to print and print often with books, but the individual photos have been tossed.

 

I like to think that they'll be interested in looking at the photos, even if they want to look through them only once before throwing out all but their favorites (if they have any). And all of my photos are labeled and most are already in albums. My thinking is that I like putting the albums together. If the kids want them, which I think they may, then they're all set.

And, if I may share my humble opinion, there is something comforting to me about holding a photo (or photo album) in my hands. While my kids are still young and their tastes may change, as of now they too seem to enjoy looking at photos. Maybe if I printed scrapbooks more frequently, then I wouldn't worry so much about the photos? No, that's not true: while now, in the digital age, I focus on "quality not quantity" with printed photos, I still think of my prints as another form of redundancy.

 

We did this recently too & I ended up putting a lot of printed pre-kids pics in pocket albums & they were more interested in them than the scrapbooks I've slaved over about each of them - tried not to feel bitter :-/ Keep on as you are, sounds like its working for ya!

 

I ended up scanning a bunch & organizing the keepers in photo boxes. I sorted them with index cards explaining whatever the occasion was & who the people are in the pics. I do better with that type of organization, rather than photo albums.
School portraits & their birthday portraits are the hardest for me. I have a storage bin full of those. I don't have a lot of pics from when I was a kid, so I always buy school pics & have professional portraits taken on their birthdays. I always have leftovers & cannot let them go. I have gotten better about not ordering packages with wallets & sticking with the very basic order.

 

Good luck Donna.. I need to purge as well and I have been the keeper of the family history, as it is only my brother and I.. I have no children so my nephew will get them. I keep photos of family we know. I have photos from my Grandfather's cousin and her husband... My Mom already went through them over 30 years ago and pulled out my Father's family from the cousin's photos.. now we still have the albums as she had no children.., Those albums while I have them will get purged.. I just have to "do it" I hate throwing family stuff out, but I need to get up the courage to just do it.

 

I would keep them but that is me. I have read so many articles about technology failing or there being advances with technology making things obsolete.

We used to have this weird external drive that used these plastic floppy disks although they weren’t floppy disks. I honestly have no clue what the media was. Anyway we had all our old digital pictures stores on these disks. Well the drive stopped working and there were no support updates, so basically I lost all those photos. It makes me so upset when I think about it. Well that’s my dad tech tale.