Do Albums Work for Organizing Photos? Watch before deciding!, by Pixologie - The Photo Estate Company on YouTube. 13 min 13 s.
- Video length
- 13 min 13 s
- Time to do it
- 20 minutes
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Steps
- 9
What you need
Steps
Know the difference first. A folder holds a file in one place, while an album is a label. One photo can sit in many albums without being copied.
Open your app and check what it calls them. Google Photos and Apple Photos say albums. Lightroom and Mylio use albums or collections for the same idea.
In Google Photos, select the photos you want, tap the plus or Add to button, choose Album, then New album and give it a clear name.
Add the same photo to a second album straight from the photo. It stays a single file, so no duplicates pile up in storage.
Pick a structure you can repeat, such as one album per year, per event, per person or per place, then stick to it.
Add information where you can, like a caption, the names of people and the place. This is what makes a photo findable later.
Plan how you will find things again. Search by date, face or place, and keep album names consistent so a search brings them up.
Keep a real backup outside the app. Albums are views of your library, so export or sync the originals to a drive or permanent storage.
Use albums for a purpose, like a shared family album, a photo book or a trip, rather than trying to file every photo in one.
Tips and common mistakes
A photo in five albums is still one file, so adding albums costs nothing in storage.
Deleting a photo from your library removes it from every album it sits in, so check membership before you delete.
Name albums the way you would search for them, such as 2019 Italy trip, not Holiday 3.
Albums do not replace a backup. If the account closes, the albums go with it.
Questions
Do albums take up extra storage?
No. An album is a label, so the same photo in several albums is still one file. Your storage counts that photo once.
Should I use folders or albums?
Folders suit where files physically live, and albums suit how you think about your photos. Most people need folders plus a backup, and albums for browsing and sharing.
Can I move a photo from one album to another?
In most apps you add the photo to the new album and remove it from the old one. The file itself stays in your library.
This guide was drafted from the video's details and general task knowledge. It has not been checked against the full video. Check the video and relevant product instructions before following a procedure. Report a correction.
