How to Organize Old Photos and Tapes Before Relocating

Moving to a new home isn’t just a huge change — it’s a huge opportunity to make other changes. As you pack up stuff from your old home, you’ve got the best chance to downsize you’ll ever get. And that doesn’t just mean getting rid of old junk to have a smoother move. There are ways for even your most important keepsakes to take up less space in your new home.

For example, how many of your family photos are in bulky albums, and how many home videos are on VHS tapes? Knowing how to organize old photos and tapes is important before the move. If you play your cards right, you’ll preserve treasured memories in better, safer ways than before — and they’ll take up less space.

Let’s discuss some practical advice on this.

Assess Your Collection Before Packing

Start by locating all your photo albums, envelopes of loose prints, VHS tapes, camcorder recordings, and any other media you’ve stored over the years. Set aside time to gather them into one place, whether that’s your living room floor or a cleared-off table.

Once collected, begin sorting. You can group by type (photos vs. video), by decade, by occasion, or however makes sense to you. This overview helps you understand the size of your collection and begin thinking about what’s worth keeping, what you might toss, and what you should digitize.

Don’t Move Clutter—Decide What’s Worth Keeping

Many people hold on to physical keepsakes by default. However, moving is a practical time to re-evaluate. Are there multiple copies of the same image? Are there tapes you’ll never watch again? Give yourself permission to let go of what no longer holds meaning.

Use these questions to guide you:

Does this photo or tape document a one-of-a-kind memory?
Will I realistically revisit this content in the future?
Is this item too damaged to repair?

Remember that “letting go” doesn’t always mean throwing things away. With old photos and tapes, it can also mean converting into a more modern, less clunky form. Even historians use digitized archives in their research nowadays — so why should you stick to outdated physical formats?

Why Now Is the Best Time to Digitize Your Media

Sure, you could argue that a relocation is a weird time to think about digitizing old media. You’ve got tons of short-term, practical chores that are arguably a bigger priority. However, this is also one of the only times you’ll take stock of your belongings — and it can help you reduce moving costs. Also, it’s one of the only times you’ll think about ways to save space.

On the other hand, digitizing old media brings nothing but upsides. Realistically, old photos and tapes decay quickly, especially if they’re already decades old. You don’t want to risk losing precious memories to time and neglect.

If you decide to digitize, you can get a whole storage unit’s worth of tapes and photos on a small USB flash drive. Plus, this format lets you organize digital files much better than you ever could in a physical format. Also, digitization makes creating backups easier and less expensive. You don’t need to pay for more VHS tapes and copies of photos — it’s only a matter of a few clicks on a computer.

Plus, when you want to share a memory with a family member, you can easily do it via email or a file storage service. Not to mention the lower relocation costs you’ll bear by hauling fewer boxes to your new place.

Use a Trusted Digitization Service

Once you decide to digitize, you’ve got plenty of options. However, the easiest one is not fiddling with the process yourself and hiring professionals to do it instead. Both VHS conversion to a digital format and photo scanning take special equipment that can cost upwards of $1,000. If you only want to digitize your home videos and family photos, this is far from a sound investment — you’ll probably never use the equipment again.

Plus, getting clear images from old photos and videos isn’t always easy. You may need to learn how to restore damaged parts of the tapes or photos via editing software, which is hard when you’re not already a professional in the field.

With a trusted professional service, you don’t have to deal with any of this. You just provide the physical media you want to digitize and wait for them to do all the work. Plus, it costs a fraction of the price you’d pay if you did everything on your own. Capture, which specializes in turning all sorts of old physical formats into well-organized digital files, is one of the dependable solutions.

During a move, digitization will save you time and money. After the move, it will save you tons of space and help you preserve memories more permanently.

Label and Organize Your Digital Memories

Once your media has been digitized, the next step is to organize everything properly. Digital clutter can be as overwhelming as physical clutter if you don’t handle it correctly.

Create folders labeled by:

Year
Family events (e.g., birthdays, vacations)
Individual names

Use clear naming conventions like “1997_GrandpaBirthday_Party1.jpg” instead of random codes or auto-generated labels. This makes searching for specific moments easier later on, especially if you’re sharing with family members.

You can also use photo management tools like Google Photos or Apple Photos to tag faces, locations, and events.

Back Up Everything Before the Move

Now that your photos and videos are safe in digital form, make sure they’re protected. Back up your files in at least two ways, such as an external hard drive and a cloud service. This adds a layer of security in case of drive failure or file corruption.

Some families also share copies of their archives with siblings or cousins. It’s a meaningful way to keep family history alive and ensure that if one copy gets lost, others still exist.

Make Memory Preservation Part of the Move

Knowing how to organize old photos and tapes before relocating saves space and ensures you’ll keep important memories safe throughout the rest of your life.

Plus, sorting through your collection now means less to unpack later. Also, you get the peace of mind that your most treasured moments are safe, backed up, and easy to find.