Find Your Digital Photos to Organize

Who even knows where all those digital files are? There are tens of thousands of images in your iCloud. And more in your Google and Facebook accounts. And your dusty old hard drives. And even those old photo CDs you got from Walgreens a million years ago.

But you've got to start somewhere, and now is the time. Plan to download photo files from wherever they might be stashed. Set up a system such as a spreadsheet or sticky notes to keep track of all the places you've checked, advises David Shor, co-founder of Tidy Haus, a home- and digital-organization company based in Fort Worth, Texas.

"You want to have a little bit of project management in place so you don't mess up," he says.

Here's a checklist for making sure you don't miss anything.

Search your Mac or PC

Think all your photos are stored in that folder neatly labeled Pictures? Think again. Odds are high that images are lurking in a Downloads folder or other random corners of your laptop.

On a Mac, you can search by kind and select "image" or even specific image file types, including JPEG, TIFF, GIF, PNG, BMP and HEIC. (You can also search for "movie" files.)

On Windows, you can search inside the taskbar, and can narrow down your query by specific file types.

Download from Google

If you use the Google Photos app on your phone or computer, it's easy to download the stored files using Google's Takeout tool.

On your computer, open a Google webpage and click your picture in the top right corner. Choose "Manage Your Google Account," then select "Data & privacy." Choose "Download your data," select what items you want to receive and how you want to receive them (such as a download link). You'll get a zip file you can then open and sift through.

If you select Google Drive in the tool, you'll also download all other files you saved there. It might be too much. If you think you have images hiding in Google Drive, skip Takeout and just look around by filtering your search to "Photos & images."

Collect iCloud photos

If you have an iPhone, you almost certainly have photos saved in iCloud. You can see and download them by going to iCloud.com/photos and signing in with your Apple ID.

You can also find them in the Photos app on your Mac, if you have iCloud photo sharing turned on.

Check Facebook

Many of us have had Facebook accounts for over a decade and probably shared photos from old cameras we no longer own.

Navigate to Meta's Accounts Center to download your photos. Choose "Your information and permissions" from the left toolbar and then select "Download your information." Choose which account you want to download (for instance, Facebook and/or Instagram), then decide how much data you want everything available or specific types of information.

Photos isn't a download category of its own. You have to select Posts to get images, then choose the time frame and media quality you want to download.

Look at old accounts

Did you ever keep photos in Flickr, Shutterfly, Dropbox or a similar storage service? If you haven't logged in lately, those photos may be purged, so log in and check.

In the case of Shutterfly, if you don't make a purchase every 18 months, your photos will be archived. You can still see them and buy prints, but you can't share or download photos until you make a purchase. Shutterfly-owned Snapfish has the same policy.

Flickr limits free accounts to 1,000 items and 50 nonpublic images. If you uploaded more than that back when Flickr was more widely used and had higher free-storage limits, the excess images are probably gone.

Hunt through old drives and CDs

You probably have an old hard drive, flash drive or stack of CDs and DVDs somewhere with photos from your wedding, the birth of your first child or the birthday of a long-gone loved one.

Most laptops today don't have CD drives or even the older USB-A ports. You might need to invest in a dongle adapter and an external CD/ DVD drive. Luckily, neither of those will break the bank.

In some cases, you might find a dead hard drive or even an old phone or tablet that you can't turn on but you suspect might contain some precious memories. If irreplaceable images are on the line, you may want to visit a tech repair shop.

Once you have all your digital photos in one place, backing them up to an external drive or cataloging them in your Photos app will be a lot easier. Then you can start worrying about all the photo prints you have stuffed in boxes in the attic.