My old photo albums are falling to pieces. Pictures slip out whenever the albums are moved, which is not often. The pages have lost their ‘stick’, and the covers are falling off.

Of course, every picture I’ve taken during the past ten years is digital and I look at both the hard copies and the digital ones about the same number of times…never.

How best to store and display them all?

Back up photos – I’ve been backing-up my digital files on two external hard drives, one is in my desk and one is actually in my car (storing it at a relatives house is an even better idea). I do worry about losing them, so I have a ‘cloud’ back-up on my computer as well.  Once you’ve done this (and most ‘cloud’ systems keep backing up your files daily) you won’t need to grab your photo albums in case of fire, flood or other natural disaster. Your precious pictures will be safe and you’ll be free to grab something else, if the worst happens and you are forced to flee your home.

Store photos online – You can check out opinions on which are the better digital photo-specific storage sites here and here.

Group online photos into events & years – As I copy my pictures onto my external hard drive, I’ve been deleting all of the doubles and blurry ones and grouping them into events, and years. This makes it much easier to search through the thousands and probably tens of thousands of files.

Scan all hard copies – There are scanning services, but they are not inexpensive. If you have a scanner at home, try to work your way through your printed pictures. Do an event or even a year each week. By scanning all of your photos and backing them up properly you can then think about how to display them in a way that allows you to really enjoy the memories you’ve captured.

How to display your photos? – There are the old standards: frames, novelty items like iphone cases, mouse pads, photo boxes but how do you get to see lots of your favourite pics without burying the house in chotchkes?

You can set up your computer to scroll through pictures, while it’s in ‘rest’ mode, or plug it into your TV (which would be a great idea for birthday parties). Digital picture frames like these, are becoming less clunky and do a pretty good job of showing off hundreds of your favorite photos.

Instead of albums, get your photos printed into a book from here or here. It makes an awesome gift and is easy to leaf through when stacked on a coffee table. Each big trip you do can be turned into a book. A hard-cover tome for each family member is a cute way to bring baby photos, and family history back into your living room and can be enjoyed by family and friends.