Most of my photo books, as you well know, archive vacations and monumental life events (our wedding, Aggie Ring Day, etc.). While I diligently document each vacation detail, the majority of our everyday life lives on a hard drive and those memories deserve equal, if not more coffee table real estate. Some of my favorite memories, after-all, come from spontaneous cell phone captures, screenshots, and memes. I like to think future me will love looking at what we considered hilarious from 2011-2018.

With 2,683 photos in the “iPhone back-up” folder on my computer, it was time to take action and begin the epic organization project. Here’s a breakdown of how I culled down my memories for printing.

Photos I Decided To Print

1. People Photos

Regardless of the quality, I flagged all of the pictures with people for my cell phone photo book. I think pictures with loved ones are the most important keepsakes in any project. David is a trooper and always smiles for my photo whims (usually with a doggo!). And, over the years, we’ve taken our fair share of selfies. I included all of them, and if you are considering a cell phone photo book project, I recommend you do, too. These are a few of my favorite people pictures and selfies-

Our first home together! Thanks, Mr. Moving Sir for snapping the photo!

We saw Aladdin in NYC! The photo quality in a dark theater is terrible. Alas, I decided to print the photo for our book!

2. Meaningful Screenshots

I love taking screenshots of conversations, dogs to adopt and funny Buzzfeed quiz results. In fact, I think screenshots are fun additions in any photo book — I wrote a whole post about it here. I didn’t save all of the screenshots, but how great are these? They are the adoption related photos for Charlie, Rory and Ellie.

The day we adopted sweet Charlie girl! At the time there was a holiday Hallmark app and we just so happened to adopt Charlie on “Love Your Pet” day!

Ellie’s adoption listing! The foster folks named her Tennille.

3. Memes and Cartoons

Occasionally, I saved a cartoon or meme that I found hilarious or meaningful. When our pup Charlie died, David sent me this:

Even after 5 years, I still look at the cartoon when I’m feeling sad.

I’m not crying, you’re crying. Anywho, there are a handful of meaningful cartoons and memes in our book.

Photos I Left on My Hard Drive:

1. Parking Lot Locations

I didn’t realize how many pictures of my parking spaces I snapped over the years. Airports, shopping malls, Target, you name it, I took a picture. I suppose I never lost my car, but didn’t think my memory shortcomings were book worthy.

2. Random Screenshots and Memes

I saved a handful of screenshots and memes (re: above) but passed on hundreds of less meaningful captures. Sometimes I took pictures of a product to try, or a funny card, but they didn’t make the cut for my book.

3. Vacation Pictures Used in Other Photo Books

Whenever I create a vacation photo book, I always combine images from cell phones, point and shoot and DSLR cameras. To save room for “everyday life,” I didn’t include vacation photos. Those cell phone memories live in the context of the vacation and that’s a-okay with me.

In Conclusion

After a few rounds of organization, I ended up with 350 pictures for our cell phone photo book. Not too bad, right? I didn’t delete anything from our hard drive, but I’m not sure how often the photos that only live on the computer will see the light of day.

Sidenote: How lucky are we that there are literally thousands of happy memories worth capturing? I’m grateful, and loved every second of flipping through my cell phone photos. If you have a mountain of photos tucked away in an iPhone back-up folder, let’s create a book together. Those stories are worth telling, too.

Next Up: How I Organized 2,600 Cell Phone Photos Part Two: Photo Editing