If you often lose track of your digital photos and home videos, you’re certainly not alone. They can easily get lost in this digital age. It’s more common to whip out your phone and take a photo than to use a camera with actual film that requires you to develop it. But does having hundreds of photos on your phone actually help you remember those special moments?

Unsurprisingly, trying to etch every moment in digital stone doesn’t actually help you remember more. Instead, the sheer number of photos causes most, if not all, of them to melt into the background. Some call this “photo overload” or “image overload.” Either way, it’s not great.

To preserve precious memories instead of seeing them lost in a sea of digital data (where they will eventually be deleted or lost), there are steps you can take to remember those moments in more formal ways. Here are some of the best and most unique ways you can preserve your memories by getting them off your devices and into a more organized, structured and memorable format.

Organize Your Visual Memories in a Stored Location

Start with the basics: whittle down what you have and preserve the best and most important. This can feel overwhelming, but a strategic approach can help. The good news is that many photos have data attached to them, and modern phones are making it easier than ever to organize things.

For instance, you can start by transferring your hundreds or thousands of photos onto a computer. From there, you should go through and delete any duplicates or unwanted entries. Then, add photos to individual files. These can be time-based, such as gathering all of your photos from “summer 2024” or “Christmas 2025.”

Another option is to use AI features, like face recognition on an iPhone, to find photos with specific loved ones in them. Pick out the best ones and add them to a folder with their name on it.

Put Video Memories in Their Own Category

Taking videos instead of or in addition to photos has also become increasingly popular, so don’t forget the videos. Sift through phone-stored videos, too. Look for any that have precious memories, and organize them in folders just like with photos.

When it comes to videos, adding a label to each video is a big help. This can be too labor-intensive for hundreds of photos, but you’ll likely have far fewer videos, making the helpful task more manageable.

Taking the extra time to label video footage is a great way to keep it relevant and accessible. Be thoughtful about how each is titled. Look for ways to integrate things, like the date of filming, the location, who is in the video and why it was taken, into each title.

Go a Step Further and Create a Physical Archive of Your Digital Treasures

As the digital photo collections are pared down, start to think of other ways to reproduce and preserve them. An obvious option is to order prints and then frame them.

There is a wide variety of sites offering photo book creation. The key is to look for archival quality like that from MPix. They offer you another high-impact option: turn a couple of your favorites into museum-quality canvas prints for the wall. This is a great way to show off your top memories and be reminded of them daily.

Turning digital photos into physical media means these will last for many, many years. It also takes them off of limited screen space and puts them out in the middle of your real life. This can spark daily joy through seeing photos on your walls, work desks, shelves and so on.

Integrate Audio By Interviewing Your Elderly Relatives

Along with visuals, like photos and videos, look for ways to flesh out memory archives with audio. Interviewing a relative is a great way to learn more about the family’s past and help preserve their own memories for future generations.

Set up a recording device (even if it’s just an app on your phone) and come up with a few questions to ask older relatives. A few examples could be:

• Where were your grandparents from?
• What was your favorite childhood game?
• What advice shaped you most?

Use these as primer questions. Then, come up with nuanced versions that speak to your relatives’ more specific experiences and memories.

Again, make sure to label finished interview files clearly with who was interviewed and what the topic or focus of the interview was. Another good step to add is to run the audio through a transcript generator and ask AI to create a bullet point version with notes on different topics covered and time stamps for when they show up in the interview.

Add Your Personal Thoughts Through a Polished Legacy Journal

Try adding the written word to your memory archives, too. Do this by using something like the AI transcript and summary of an interview (see previous section). Another way is through a legacy journal.

A legacy journey preserves family memories and stories. It also helps carry forward important lessons for future generations.

Once again, a good legacy journal includes things like family interviews. Prompts about childhood and family history are also important.

Consistently taking the time to fill out a legacy journal is a great way to add your own finishing touch to your memory preservation initiative. It adds your voice to your family’s story in a meaningful, information-filled way.

Add in a Time Capsule to Bring Everything Together

If you want a final nod to legacy, consider going the extra step of creating a time capsule. Many families find this a fun way to celebrate family history and set it up for future generations to remember you more easily. You can create a capsule of your own by:

• Choosing an opening date for your capsule: This could be 10 years or a century. Just make sure you leave careful instructions if someone else will be doing the opening!
• Pick who to represent in your time capsule: Is this your personal legacy for your descendants? A family snapshot for your great-grandchildren? Who should be involved?
• Pick your keepsakes: What can go in your capsule? Who gets space? Do you want to add any written content, like each participant’s answers to questions about the current culture?
• Pick and pack your container: From there, store it with a clear reminder to open it when the time comes.

Back Everything You Can Up

The last step is to back up everything you can. Once you whittle down your photo and video selection, back everything up off your computer. (Ideally, move it out of your living space, too, to protect it from environmental damage, such as a flood or fire.)

If you’re ordering canvas prints from a site like MPix, you might want to add some high-quality photo versions as a backup. Once you’ve written your legacy journal, consider backing up digital copies of the pages.

Organizing and backing up your memories is more than a clean-up exercise. It takes the bottomless pit of digital overwhelm on your phone and turns it into a meaningful archive of the past. It is more than a good idea. It’s a critical step if you want your endless digital snapshots of life to carry meaning forward as you get older and those precious memories begin to fade in your mind.