{DOWNLOAD THE FULL GUIDE HERE}

If your camera roll has thousands of baby photos and you can never find the one you want, you are in very good company.

Between the 3am feeds, the first smiles and the endless "just one more" shots of a sleeping newborn, nobody has time to sort photos. So they pile up, and the ones you love most get buried.

The good news: you don't need to be techy, and you don't need a free weekend. We've put together a free guide, The Family Photo Sort-Out, that walks you through it in six small steps of 5 to 15 minutes each. Here's a taste of what's inside.

Step 1: Back everything up automatically

The most important thing you can do is turn on automatic cloud backup, so a lost or broken phone never means lost photos. It takes about three minutes, and then you never think about it again.

• iPhone: Settings, tap your name, then iCloud, then Photos, and turn on "Sync this iPhone".
• Android: Open Google Photos, tap your profile picture, choose Photos settings, then Back up, and switch it on.

If you have years of photos already on your phone, leave it plugged in on Wi-Fi overnight the first time. After that, it just happens.

Steps 2 and 3: Find any photo in seconds

Both Google Photos and Apple Photos can recognise faces, places and objects, so you can type a word and find the photo. No folders and no scrolling.

Try searching for things like "beach", "birthday cake", "grandma" or "first steps". Then teach the app who your little one is:

• Google Photos: turn on "Group similar faces" in Settings, tap your child's face in the Search tab, and add their name.
• Apple Photos: open Search, scroll to People, tap a face and choose Add Name. Your child also gets their own mini-album under People & Pets.
• If you don't like the face ID even just searching by date eg. March 2022 can be a great fast filter to find the event or date you're looking for.

Once named, searching your child's name pulls up their whole life in date order. It's brilliant for finding "one photo from every month".

Then build a habit: tap the heart on any photo that makes you smile. Hearted photos collect in a Favourites album in both apps, with no folders to set up. That album becomes your shortlist for printing later.

Step 4: Keep them safe without a big bill

You may not need to pay anything at all. Every Google account includes 15GB free and every Apple ID includes 5GB, though families with little ones often outgrow that within a year or two.

If you do upgrade, a 2TB plan (roughly $9.99 a month on both Google One and iCloud+) comfortably covers most families. Prices vary by country, so check the app before you subscribe.

Here's the tip most parents miss: if you already have Amazon Prime, Amazon Photos gives you unlimited full-resolution photo storage for free (video is capped at 5GB). It makes a perfect free second copy.

That second copy matters. A simple rule is to keep your photos in two places that aren't both your phone:

• Copy 1: your Google Photos or iCloud backup from Step 1.
• Copy 2: Amazon Photos if you have Prime, a free account such as MEGA (20GB free), or an external hard drive you plug in once or twice a year.

Step 5: Choose your favourite moments

You don't need perfect photos, just ones that feel like them. Set a timer for 15 minutes, open your Favourites album and scroll. If it makes you smile, it stays.

A simple rule of thumb keeps it manageable:

1. One "wow" photo per month: clear, well lit, and a good snapshot of that stage.
2. One "everyday" photo per month: nothing special, just ordinary life. These become favourites with age.
3. Every genuine milestone: firsts, birthdays and family gatherings, however imperfect the shot.
4. Create Albums in your Google photos (or whereever you're storing everything) for each month for you bub's first year and then yearly after that. I like to name them either YEAR_Childs name or Childs name_Age so they're easy to search when you're filling in a particular page.

The slightly blurry photo of your toddler mid-laugh will mean more in ten years than a perfectly posed one. Don't forget to include photos of yourself (even if you think you look terrible). You are amazing in your child's eye, don't hide yourself from them.

Step 6: Print them for your keepsake book

This is where the sorting pays off. Your Blueberry Co Colour Me In Baby Keepsake Book is made for printed photos alongside your own handwriting and colouring, so your Favourites album is already your shortlist.

Most baby keepsake books use somewhere between 20 and 40 photos, so check your book's layout for the exact number of photo spots. For our books we encourage as many photos as possible, and I tend to jam my books full of them. Then just order your prints straight from your phone, using the Print Store in Google Photos, or the Share and Print options on iPhone.

A few tips that make a real difference:

• Choose matte over glossy. It copes better with little fingers and glue.
• Order 4x6 inch prints and if you love including lots of photos create a grid of smaller photos so you can cut them up and stick them in (this is a great cost saving hack).
• Check portrait and landscape before you order in bulk.
• Order 2 or 3 spares of your very favourites, because mistakes happen while sticking them in and sometimes you want to frame the good ones.
• In a hurry? Your local office works or Big W often ahs same day printing, so don't get overwhelmed trying to print 4,721 photos. Sometimes choosing 15 photos from March-July 2025 and printing them can be the easiest way to make a decision, manage the cost and actually get them printed and stuck in our book.

Get the free guide

Want all of this in one place, with step-by-step instructions you can follow with your phone in hand? Download The Family Photo Sort-Out for free.

It includes a one-page cheat sheet to tick off as you go. You really don't need to be good with technology, just ten minutes and a cuppa.

Happy sorting, and we hope your favourite moments end up exactly where they belong: printed, coloured in and treasured.