Question 1 – Is it a good shot?

Here, we are talking about the quality of a photo. Is it blurry? Over or underexposed? Badly composed or out of focus? If it is and it doesn’t tell a really important story, I think it can go.

Question 2 – Do you know the people in the photo?

Photos showing people are usually the most precious ones. However, if we don’t even know the people in the photo and have forgotten why it was taken in the first place, I think it can go. Please note I’m talking about digital photos you took. It is not about scans or prints of old historic photos. I would treat those separately; they might belong to a genealogy project and you might want to keep them for the time being.

Question 3 – Do you want to be reminded of the person or event in the photo?

We probably all have them … photos of exes or other people we might not really want to be reminded of. So, why keep the photo? It doesn’t always have to be people. It can be locations or events that we prefer to forget. Hence, let’s get rid of the visual reminder.

Question 4 – Is the photo a duplicate?

That’s a no-brainer! Keep the best version of the duplicate – which is usually the biggest in size – and delete the other. By the way, there is a great software that helps you find duplicates. You’ll find them on my resource page here.

Question 5 – Are there similar photos?

Similar photos are not the same as duplicates. A good example is the group photos we all take. Rather than one shot, we take about 10 in the hope that everybody looks good on at least one of those shots. Instead of going through them straight away and keeping only the best ones, we keep them all and then forget about it. Time to find those series of shots, then keep the best and delete the rest! By the way, the above-mentioned software can also help to find similar photos.

Question 6 – Does the photo tell an important story?

Sometimes, a photo might not be the best in quality or composition, but it might tell an important story. That means it’s a keeper.

Question 7 – Do you like this photo?

This might seem like a silly question or maybe a bit too ‘KonMari’, who encourages us to only keep what brings us joy. However, I think it’s a good and justified question. Because – if a photo doesn’t make you smile – do you really need to keep it? And yes, there are exceptions, but give it a go.

Question 8 – Will you use this photo in one way or another in the future?

So, you decide to keep that photo, but there is that niggling feeling that maybe you shouldn’t? Well, ask yourself what you will be doing with this photo in the future. Would you use it for a photo book or a gift? If you decide it’s not good enough to go into a book and it doesn’t tell a specific and important story, do you still need to keep it?

Question 9 – Will your kids want this photo?

Think about future generations. Would they want this photo? Would it mean anything to them, or would they simply hit the delete key? I hate to break it to you, but your kids will not want to inherit 100,000 photos (and yes, this is probably what a lot of people will look at by the time the inheritance comes along!). They don’t want all our other stuff either and it’s not much different with photos.