Is Your iPhone’s Photo Collection Out Of Control?
One of the few drawbacks to the high-quality camera built into the iPhone is how easy it can be for photo collections to swell far beyond 10,000 photos. While it’s convenient to have instant access to every photo you’ve taken in the past decade, finding a particular shot becomes a monumental task when collections grow so large.
Thankfully, numerous tools have emerged to help remedy the woes of shutter-happy phone photographers. Between the updates Apple has made to its Photos app and other purpose-built apps that have been developed to leverage the power of AI, it’s never been easier to keep gigantic photo collections neatly organized and easily searchable. We’ve put together this quick guide with the Top 6 Ways To Organize A Massive Photo Collection to help you efficiently manage your photos.
The Fastest Way To Delete Tons Of iPhone Pics
Gemini Photos: Gallery Cleaner
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/gemini-photos-gallery-cleaner/id1277110040
Quickly find duplicates, blurred photos, and screenshots that are no longer needed and delete them in bulk with this artificial intelligence-based photo gallery cleaning app for iPhones.
App Cost
Basic Features: Free
Premium Features: $4.99/month or $19.99 Annually
Organize And Sync Large Photo Albums On Any Device
These two apps work across all device types, from Androids to iPhones to Macs to Windows PCs! Quickly organize and sync all of your photos using either the cloud, an external hard drive, or a combination of storage places.
Google Photos
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/google-photos/id962194608
Create Customized Albums That Hold Up To 20,000 Photos
Beyond the ability to add up to 20,000 photos or videos to an album, Google Photos also enables you to create, edit, and add things like maps and text to your photo albums.
Dynamic Photo Categorization With Live Updates
Google Photos can automatically add photos of your friends and family into specific albums using facial recognition.
Sync Favorite Photos Between Apps
When you favorite a photo in Apple Photos by tapping the heart icon, Google Photos automatically syncs them to the Favorites album and vice versa.
Share Photos On Chromecast-Enabled Devices
You can use Google Chromecast to share photos on TVs that aren’t equipped with Apple Airplay sharing capabilities.
Is The Cost Worth It?
While the free storage up to 15GB may sound good, keep in mind that around 10,000 photos equal about 300GB of storage. So, the actual cost to have your pictures on Google Photo’s servers, in this case, would cost you $5.97/mo. This isn’t terrible, but considering you can get a full 2TB of storage with Apple’s iCloud storage for only $9.99/mo, you can see Google’s cloud storage pricing is far higher. For 2TB of storage on Google Photo, you’re looking at $39.80/mo—that’s four times the cost over iCloud!
While the features in Google Photo are robust, those with considerably larger photo collections than the average user may struggle to see the value when it comes to paying for the app’s storage charges.
App Cost
Storage Up To 15GB: Free
$1.99/month for each additional 100GB
Mylio
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/mylio/id908787435
How does Mylio work?
Mylio syncs with all of your photo storage devices: computers, phones, tablets, external drives, and encrypted cloud storage accounts. Mylio assigns a role to each device, which of your devices handle managing storage, and which serve editing roles.
For those who want more privacy, you can choose to only locally store your images and keep them entirely off the cloud while still being able to sync wirelessly across devices, making this a great alternative for those who can’t use Airdrop due to device incompatibilities.
How many photos can Mylio manage?
Mylio is free for libraries of up to 5,000 image or video files across three devices. Mylio Premium removes all file and device limits and grants you access to more advanced features.
App Cost
Free: Up to 5,000 photos
Premium access: $9.99/month or $99.99/year
Quickly Find A Specific Photo On Your iPhone
In the Photos app, tap the magnifying glass Search icon at the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. Next, type in the name of a place, a search term, or the person's name that you’re searching for (they’ll have to be pre-assigned in the Photos app).
Create Custom Albums To Keep Organized
When your iPhone’s camera roll grows to thousands of pictures, it can become totally overwhelming to scroll through or find that exact photo you have in mind. To keep your photo collection well-organized, create albums in the Photos app. The more specific your albums are, the better, especially for larger collections.
It’s also helpful to create albums for specific trips, events, or moments with friends and family before you start shooting. That way, as soon as you’ve finished taking pictures, they can be shuffled into the correct place for later editing and viewing.
Use The Photos App To Organize Your Pictures With Albums
- In Apple Photos, tap the Albums tab, then tap Create New Album or New Shared Album
- Name the album and then tap Save
- Select the photos you want in the album and tap Done
Easily Manage Photos On An iPhone
If you’re getting notifications that your iPhone storage is full every time you try to take a photo, it might be worthwhile to upgrade to iCloud storage to keep your pictures safe and sound while improving access to your collection from other Apple devices.
The music, apps, and other content on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch can also access the space in your iCloud storage.
Steps To Set Up iCloud To Manage Your Photos
- Go to Settings > (your name) > iCloud > Photos
- Turn on iCloud Photos
- Select Optimize iPhone Storage to save space on your phone
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