Your explanation/tutorial is OUTSTANDING!!! So easy to follow and understand (and you covered a LOT of information in just 13 minutes). After organizing, reorganizing and starting over multiple times, with your directions, I finally had ALL 30,000 of our photos smartly organized in warp speed!!! THANK YOU!!!!!
I have been trying to tame first my iPhotos, and now my iCloud Photos libraries for many years, This particular RU-vid video finally laid out a path for me to achieve my goal with humor and clarity that go way beyond other tutorials. You have no idea how many hours you have saved for me, which I will now be able to spend with my family instead of sorting through photos of them, bleary-eyed, hunched over a laptop. Thank you so much, David!
Thank u David! What a valuable and TIME SAVING tutorial. Also your advice is spot on: Watch it once, watch it twice BEFORE u take action. There’s much to absorb.
Welp... I watched this video early yesterday morning and commenced to obsessively organizing my photos from the 60's through today. I love this process and my weird ability to hyper focus on tasks like this, but I am feeling a little bleary eyed and stiff from sitting at the computer so so long though! Thanks for this! It's so nice to have some organization with what was once a black hole of images!
Superb class! Thanks for simplifying words: library, album, smart album, folder, etc. And what is deleted and what is not. Always appreciate your talent in doing this. "Pretty eyes" always helps too. Keep it up; you do a good public service.
I’m so grateful to have run across your photo organization videos! I’ve spent years playing around with different techniques that just didn’t work well. This is a true game changer. Thank you!
I dreaded knowing that I needed to review and combine the photos and videos on my Macbook, Phone, and tablet. I was deleting duplicates through each of my devices. It was only 2 days of torture. Thank God I found this video before I wasted weeks.
Firstly thanks for the creation of this engaging video... but when I tried to follow it, get rid of my old albums and apply a new structure based on this setup, I realised soon that the terminology had unfortunately been mixed up repeatedly. David talks on various occasions about ‘albums’ when he actually means ‘folders’. The narrative doesn’t actually match this by the way excellent video. I first noticed it when in the video he creates “albums’ for each year and within that “smart albums”... I didn’t have that option available to me and when I looked closer the icon was for a ‘folder’ of each year, not for an ‘album’. When I changed to creating a ‘folder’ for each year everything was fine. Not trying to be a ‘smarty pants’, but clear terminology is a key feature in an educational video.
I pay attention to the detail as well, so thanks for clarifying. Clear and concise instructions, including using terms or labels consistently, impacts flow and effectiveness. It's a bloody PITA having to second guess, back track and then interpret wtf is being said. Thanks for taking the time to leave your feedback. Much appreciated.
Thank you David, steadily working through 32,000 images and working like a charm. I’ve been putting this off for so long, and you just made it easy. A big thank you!
Thank you David! Your classes are the BEST! I am scared because there is so much to do but watching your videos gives me confidence to take one step at a time. I have 20 years of photo chaos!! One step at a time, remove duplicates, merge files, organize files - I don't know if this is the correct order but I am going to try the first one and continue to watch and rewatch your videos! Thank you!!! 💝
What a great video! I spent the whole day following your technique on organizing my photos. One, worked great. Two, gives me some organization that I would not have without you. Three, got me playing with my new Mac and listening to my new Airpods so bonus. The one thing that I found from another video after doing this work is creating a smart album to find all pictures that have not been put into albums. I think if you add this to your video, you would have covered 99% of what's needed by most. This happened to me as I had many duplicates and ended up trying to delete most of them with a few that didn't quite make it.
This is a superb master class. I completely messed up my album structures on my mac, so have to completely restructure it all over again! For that this video has been invaluable advice. David you are a great teacher!
This is exactly what project I need to tackle on my Mac. Soon as I opened photos I realized my sidebar was, "missing". Took me a few minutes to figure out to drag the window to make it larger and BAM-There is the sidebar. I'm a photo newbie and so unorganized I am going to follow everything you say in this video 👏🏼
Thank you so much. I've been waiting anxiously for your update for this since you mentioned it a while ago. This will occupy me for a few days now. Your videos are excellent and very well presented. Keep up the good work. Scott (UK) 🇬🇧
I watched the last video on this and organized all my photos and it worked great! Sometime after that I was on the phone working with Apple on a photo question I had and we were screen sharing. When I went to photos and starting scrolling past my albums to find something he said stop! I said what's wrong and he said in all the years he had be doing tech support he had never seen Photos so organized! It was too funny and told him to watch your video! Had to share!! Thanks so much for your videos, they were a huge help when I switched from a PC years ago.
This method of organising my photos is not entirely for me. There are however elements of your technique that I can definitely adopt. The one thing that is for certain however is that I really appreciate all your content across your entire channel over the years and your contribution to the community. You’re an absolute legend mate, I wish you a tonne more subscribers and success. Please keep it up🙏 🇦🇺
This is the most helpful guide to organizing photos I’ve ever come across over the two decades since I started organizing digital photos. Thank you so much for sharing all of this info!
Just switched over to a Mac Pro because using a windows based computer just wasn’t working for me. I’m only 2 days in and I’m so happy I switched! And so glad I found your channel and subscribed. Looking forward to watching more of your videos
I just found this video after searching how to best organize my mac photos so I can scan and share old family photos. OMG-I wish I had found this years ago when I started to help me keep my photos organized so I can find things! THANKS!!!!
Thank you David, with your tutorials, I organized (and still further organizing) over 20.000 photos over the months. From several devices to one library. Deleting, importing, meta-data, keywords, places, folder, albums ... Great tipps! Soooo useful. The next big step for me will be the scanning of old photos ... Ciao Jack
Wow, this is such a great video. I just organized photos going back to 1998 through 2023. Not a lot of work, discovered tons of old photos and videos. Absolutely great video.
Thank you for bringing Mac back there for just a split second I thought I was slipping into technology Applegate-tondom ... Namaste my dear brother from another mother I say that endearingly.
I have so many photos saved I was terrified to take on what felt like the Goliath of a task of organizing them. You made this so simple and easy. THANK YOU!
This video, like all of David A Cox's videos, was incredibly helpful. I went from 41,720 photos to 23,224! I bought PowerPhoto and it got rid of the duplicates. However, I did have issues with it crashing quite often. It eventually accomplished what I needed. Thanks David!
Deleting all albums before starting this tutorial is okay if you only have less than 100 pics or so. I have 14.531 - to go through them all again and sort them into new folders (albums) would take months in selecting the pics for each particular album. Deleting all the albums would be counter productive for this user. Also the title of this clip should be: How to organize your photos by year, as there’s a multitude of reasons to have photos categorized that don’t correspond to the year they were taken.
Thank you so much. Just switch to MacBook after a lifetime user of PC, and it was very confusing. Your video was so informative and clear, with no stupid background music. Thanks a million again!
Incredible...started me on a 25 year memory journey and just an excellent tutorial. On my way to amazing organization but also BEING ABLE TO SEE AND ENJOY those memories! Thank you so much!
I couldn't really "dig in" til I found this vid. a million thanks and recommending it to anyone/everyone. I'm not finished yet, but a quick suggestion--when you have us make the "wrong date" album, you might add more albums that aren't categorized by year. example: I hand knit christmas stockings each year as gifts, and would like them in one album right next to "wrong dates" don't want a new album every year that says "christmas stockings" cuz I just want them all in one place.. Maybe 2.0 addresses this issue. Again, you have NO IDEA how unbelievably helpful this is. I spent an entire afternoon cleaning up "events" that were rolled over from a previous mac, only to find all the photos were still in the library. ARGGH! Next up iTunes/music. will look for a video. You have a gift for communicating.
Finally I understood the concept of album and smart album (I really don't like this inconsistency with deleting photos functionality. why they don't call smart album a smart search and it would have been so much more intuitive). 1. do you have a video about exporting photos? (ideally whole folder-albums tree) 2. so once I create some smart album, and there are zero photos there (because they were all organised in albums), I still cannot delete that empty smart album because it would delete the photos which used to be there????
I don’t understand why you asked us to like our favourite photos . Then asked us to unclick them. Then started talking about your favourite Grand Canyon photos. I got lost.
I have watched this so many times and I thank you so much!!!! It drove me nuts that my phots were not organized the way I wanted them, but now I have them just were I want them!!
Thank you. A much needed revamping of my photos and the use of the software. I knew it was powerful but just never used it. Ive been a Mac person from back in the Mac 512 days.
I really needed this guidance. My photo albums have become a dumpster fire of over 50,000 photos and I had no idea where to begin. Thanks for taking the time to make this content!!!
My 35K photo app is totally disorganised. I need months working on it to get it structured. Where do I start? Well this video lesson has been excellent and a perfect way to make a start on what will be very lengthy exercise. Thanks David. You made this lesson very clear.
You're an excellent teacher. This channel should have 1-million + subscribers IMO! Your teaching has motivated me to finally tackle my Apple Photos library. Thank you! :)
I’ve always been technical minded. The first thing I wanted to do when I got my first PC was to take it apart and see what the inside looked like. I pursued a career in computer forensics because I loved all things data, and especially FIGURING it all out in an investigative process. However…I have never been as stumped and frustrated with anything as much as my @$!% photo library! THANK YOU FOR THIS VIDEO. I’m subscribed, will use your code to buy Power Photos, and coffee is on the way.
You changes my life! However is no secret that photo albums can get bigger and bigger. Do you migrate albums to external drives? I have a big one with photos of my band. Do you think is correct? I mean, where does it store the originals when you migrate an album to an external HD?
No answer to your question from David - as expected. The guy just likes other people’s short GOOD comments and ignore long (and short!) comments that really need his help. The answer to your question is to get a third party photo organiser like Mylio, Lightroom, etc.
This video is so useful and easy to understand, that I refer to it every time I want to organize another large group of photos to make sure I get all of the steps right. Much appreciated!
Your video was very helpful as I struggle with Photos on my iMac. I subscribed to your videos and am trying to make a modest contribution, but I and having difficulty making that contribution with my Visa, the most convenient way for me.
Really great tutorial - though I would suggest you start the video with a warning for people to backup their library. I worked in tech and the number of people that played around with photos and lost their entire library because they didn't back up is way too high. This should be the first part of any video tutorial.
Two observations: 1) the content and delivery are fantastic - just what I needed! 2) the structure and flow of your video is a masterclass in how to teach on RU-vid. Thank you! Subscribed.
So weird how things can change a few months can make. I purchased my Mac toward the end of the year, so there is no need to hold down the command key, just tap on the heart. Thank you so much, I am so glad I found you, this makes everything so much easier. I assume it’s the same process for videos right? Tic Tok videos:))), I have almost 300.
Hi, I'm Don, and I'm a data hoarder. That being said: I love the way data syncs over all Apple devices, and I loved this tutorial. However, because my (very) old fashioned ideas of organization are hard to break, here's what I do to ensure my data isn't lost or accidentally deleted: I export every single thing in photos to my own folder structure on an external drive, then I delete everything in Photos. I know it's ridiculous and SO 2000s, but I can't help it. I have every picture and video, but I don't rely on iCloud or the photos app to organize for me.. I'm sort of hands-on like that, and I like to know for sure where every file and folder is located, not some strange link-based system. I mean, have you looked into the photos library package? Noooo thanks. Seems weird, I know, but there it is -- but still an excellent tutorial video!
Hey Don, I am like you - totally. Once I organised everything in Photos, then wanted to export my whole folders-albums tree at once and discovered it is not possible. You can only export albums one by one - soooo limiting. So after this experience I got so discouraged to use Photos and I also do not feel comfortable with this concept of linking/references. The Finder in Mac is also very limited (I really hate how it works comparing to Explorer, to be honest). In the past I used to use Photoshop for organising my photos as well. What do you use today for creating your structure on the external hard disk?
@@amagique I'm glad I'm not the only one ;-) I actually just create folders manually on the external disk. Something like "July 2021" or whatever, and place the appropriate pictures into that folder. Once the year is done, I place all the "month" folders into a "year" folder, like "2021." If there is a special event in a given month, like a wedding, I'll just add a folder in the "month" folder that says "So and so's wedding." In this way, I can drill down in any year / month and find what I'm looking for. Of course, I name all my pictures as well so it's easier (for me) to find what I need. As a last measure I still do a final backup on an M-Disc and store that disc safely. (Who the heck uses optical media anymore?! Yep. I do. I'm VERY old fashioned I guess lol)
Thanks David. You're the best MAC teacher! I've been waiting for these instructions for years :-) 3 quick questions please: 1) should I use Power Photos to remove all duplicate photos BEFORE I start organizing? 2) once my photos are organized on the MAC, would they show up on my iphone in the same organized way? 3) What would happen to all photos I take after organizing? How do I keep up with this organizing? Thank you so much.
Great questions. One of the great things about Power Photos is it analyzes whether or not duplicate photos have already been organized into albums and then it keeps those relationships in tact... so it does not matter whether you run it first or last. Personally, I’d probably run it first. Yes, that same structure should appear on your phone PROVIDED you use iCloud Photo Library on your phone (which I recommend). And finally, smart albums auto update so just once a year (or however often you like) you can go back to the smart album for the current year and follow the same steps.
LOVE LOVE The video! I have a question if you could take the time to answer that would be awesome! Lets say I want to store my photos/videos on an external hard drive to save space on my mack. Can these albums be transferred to an external hard drive and be organized as if they were on a MAC? Thanks!
This tutorial has given me the courage to finally organize and edit my pics-a task I’ve been putting off for a very long time. Can’t wait to get started. BTW, David has solved some very gnarly problems for us that had other experienced technicians stymied. His commitment and persistence really paid off. I highly recommend his personal services. The investment paid off big time for us. Thank you David!
Great info and a solid method and strategy for organization. My only request is on the next iteration of this video is to accurately describe Albums and Folders. Both terms are conflated in the current vid.
Thank you for this very helpful video. I've been trying to figure out how to organize my photos for years and this has shown me the light. I'm about to get started... wish me luck!
Moving from Windows to Mac, this video clarifies so many things and just watching is it a stress buster and makes photo organizing possible in a simple manner!! thanks a bunch for this video!! :)
Ran into the problem he stated at the end of the video. I have a late 2013 Mac that is lost to the new updates and I found this workaround. You have to edit the smart album to sort by date captured is before.... and work your way forward.
I was sure I had watched this video some time ago but after looking at the title stating 2021 and then checking the upload date (which shows as 14th March 2021) I just figured it was similar but not the same video. A few moments in I realised it was just a clickbait to get more views / revenue. You have simply just re-uploaded this and changed the title to 2021. When watching the video you reference that the year you first recorded and uploaded this was 2020 proving my point.
Thank you SO SO MUCH!!!! I do have almost 30,000 photos in "photos"...as well as thousands of other photos I really want to organize (that were at least digitized years ago) on a hard drive...and really would like to use PHOTOS for this, but omg that's so overwhelming! This tutorial is exactly what I needed!!! I know it'll take a long time to finally organize everything (especially with 20 thousand other projects/things to do...lol) but in my downtime I finally feel I have a much easier way to tackle this!
Great class, finally an adequate way to clearly and logically sort my photos. For the video smart album, I added a 3rd rule identical with the photos smart album, i.e. album is not any. Your classes have turned my scepsis into enthusiasm, for which I thank you.
Thanks David. This tutorial helped me understand the Photos Mac Application and I could organized thousands of photos since 1983. Still having challenges with the duplication and several wrong photo dates and places but it's not a big deal any more. Thanks again.
I love how you use smart albums to help cull the photos you dont want. I have a question about the 2nd smart album rule: Why do you set the 2nd rule to be: “Album” “is not” “any” ? Why don’t you set the 2nd rule to: “Photo” “is not” “any” ?
Thanks for the video. Definitely helped me. I do have one question, how do the albums sync to your phone? and should we delete albums on the phone in order to have everything nice like the computer?
Your content is very helpful. Do you have a video on how to move pictures - to storage? my photos are taking up space on my ipad , I phone and iMac... I need them on a drive or cd for storage.
I started an hour a day. I find if I do it tooo fast, I start making sloppy decisions. A bit tough getting started, but 2/3 of the way done and I'm sailing through it. Good luck on Saturday.
I understand how using the smart 2020 album helps you filter down the remaining photos left to categorize into regular albums. However, if you create a smart album for videos those videos will still remain in your smart 2020 album too. At least it does in my OS version (High Sierra - yeah, it's old). I wound up creating a regular album and moving the videos there. Thanks for the ideas!
@@davidrohr3884 A smart folder is really just a result set from the rules you define for that folder, so yes, if you deleted a video from a smart folder, you'll delete it for real. I just dragged and dropped my videos into a new folder.
I started out with this video and then just got hooked to watching more--GREAT TUTORIALS!! Thank you!! But now I want to go back to organizing photos--which should I start with? This one and then removing duplicates etc???
I am enthused after watching your video for organizing photos. Before I begin I'd like to know if I should proceed with organizing my photos prior to transferring them from my 2011 Mac Book Pro to my new Mac Book Air.
Once you complete your yearly album can you erase the smart album? I understand about duplicating it to the next year but do you need these smart albums anymore?
Is there a way to organize favorites into folders in the actual "favorites" album- as you can imagine out of 20k photos probably a couple hundred favorites
Wow thank you so much for figuring this out and sharing this! The apple photos app has been driving me crazy. I always hated how it seemed like I couldn't organize my photos because it was one long photo stream. I even started pulling them off my iCloud to put them in folders and then deleting from the cloud.. I wish I knew this before I started doing that, because now I have to re-bring a few thousand photos into Photos haha. Ah well, lesson learned. You're the best.
Total novice here and trying to follow so I can organize 40k photos. I think you missed a step to tell us that after we rename the new album after we've made the photo favorites, we have to go back to those favorites and actually drag them into that new album. The way your video shows, it looks like they were supposed to just magically appear in there. My new album was empty so that confused me. Just letting you know I either misunderstood or that missing step was confusing. I'm excited to give this method a try though!
Yes at 8:11 something is missing. Now I have a mess. When I clicked favorites it looks like they all went in an album but I’m not sure if it’s a smart album so I can’t empty it?!?!
