How to digitize old family photos (the right way)

Pick the right method for the pile

• A phone scanning app (free) — fastest for loose prints. Good apps de-glare and auto-crop. Perfect for “get it done this weekend.”
• A flatbed scanner — best quality for prints you care most about; scan at 600 DPI so you can reprint or zoom later.
• Slides & negatives — need a dedicated film/slide scanner or a service; a phone won’t do them justice.
• A scanning service — worth it for huge collections; you ship the box, they return prints + files. Use a reputable one and check they return originals.

Capture quality you won’t regret

Scan in good, even light, square to the photo. Save the originals as high-quality JPEG (or TIFF for the irreplaceable ones) — don’t rely on a low-res copy. It’s far easier to scan once at good quality than to redo a box in five years.

Label as you go (the part everyone skips)

A folder of IMG_4821.jpg is barely better than the shoebox. As you scan, capture who’s in the photo, roughly when, and where — even a guess. The fastest way to do this without it becoming a second job is to tag people and add a caption right when you import, so the knowledge is attached to the photo forever instead of living in one relative’s memory.

Back them up in more than one place

Once digitized, your photos follow the same rule as any irreplaceable file: more than one copy, in more than one place (see our backup guide). A pile of scans on a single laptop isn’t preserved — it’s relocated.