How I Cleaned Up the Thousands of Photos and Videos I Had Scattered Across the Internet

Key Points:

• The author faced a complicated multimedia storage situation, with photos and videos scattered across five cloud services and multiple offline drives, compounded by using different phone operating systems over the years.
• To address this, the author followed a three-step plan: gather all multimedia files from various sources, declutter by removing duplicates and unwanted photos/videos using specialized apps, and consolidate everything into a single cloud service (Google Photos).
• Decluttering was the most time-consuming step, involving the use of tools like Cloud Duplicate Finder, DeDuplicate, and Google’s built-in features to identify blurry, duplicate, or redundant photos, as well as deleting unnecessary videos to reduce storage load.
• The author adopted the 3-2-1 backup rule, maintaining three copies of data across two different media and one offsite location, by storing photos locally on a computer, backing up to an external hard drive, and uploading to Google Photos.
• This reorganization significantly lowered subscription costs from nearly $300 per year across multiple cloud services to under $60 annually, while also inspiring the author to create physical photo books and digital frames for cherished memories.