Okay, let’s talk about that thing I tried back in 2023. It feels like ages ago now, but yeah, looking back… what a ride.
Getting Started
So, early last year, I got this big idea. I wanted to finally sort out all my digital photos. You know, thousands of them, scattered everywhere – old drives, cloud stuff, phone backups. A real mess. My plan was simple: get everything in one place, tag it, make it searchable. Easy, right? That’s what I thought.
I started off pretty motivated. First step, I bought a big new hard drive. Felt good, like I was making progress already. Then I began pulling files from all over. This took way longer than I expected. Copying from old, slow USB drives… man, that tested my patience.
- Dragged photos off three old laptops.
- Downloaded heaps from Google Photos and iCloud.
- Found a stack of old DVDs I’d burned years ago. Remember burning DVDs? Wild.
Hitting Roadblocks
Getting the files together was just the start. Then came the real fun: duplicates. So. Many. Duplicates. I tried using some software that was supposed to find them automatically. Some worked okay, others were garbage. Spent hours just reviewing potential duplicates, trying not to delete the wrong versions.
Then I decided I needed a system. Folders by year? By event? By person? I spent like a week just thinking about the folder structure. Seriously, a whole week. I’d start organizing one way, then change my mind, move everything, then change it back. It was chaos.
And tagging? Forget about it. I thought I’d use some fancy software to automatically tag faces or places. Tried one, it was slow. Tried another, it kept crashing. Tried doing it manually for a bit… nope. Way too much work. My motivation started draining fast.
Where It Ended Up
So, where did this grand project end up? Well, that big hard drive? It’s sitting on my desk. It’s got most of the photos on it, I think. But they’re still a mess. There are duplicates galore. The folder structure is half-finished, a weird mix of different ideas I had.
I basically just… stopped. Life got busy, other things came up. The massive, perfectly organized photo library I dreamed of? Still a dream. Every now and then I look at that drive and think, “I should really finish that.” But honestly? I probably won’t. It turned out to be way bigger and more annoying than I thought.
So yeah, that was one of my big “projects” for 2023. Started strong, fizzled out. Classic me, maybe. At least I know where most of the pictures are now. Sort of.
