How-to video

How to Digitize Old Photos at Home

Boxes of old prints and no plan? Here is a small, finishable way to start digitizing old photos at home. Count the boxes, make four piles, scan in small batches, then check and copy. Based on public guidance from the Library of Congress and the National Archives.

Video coming October 21, 2026

The steps

Taken from the video. Where we cite a public source, the name is at the end of the step. Anything marked as our suggestion is our own judgment, not a published rule.

1. Keep the originals. Scanning lets your family view and share photos without handling the originals, and the National Archives says handling can cause damage. Keep your originals after you scan them. The National Archives says digital files have their own preservation risks and can easily be lost, and that digitized images are not considered a replacement for originals. So this is about making copies, not clearing out the closet. Source: National Archives. The closing point is our own framing.
2. Pick one finish line. Scan everything is not a plan, so pick one finish line and write it down. It could be one box, one occasion such as a wedding or a reunion, one shelf of albums, or one evening a week, where you stop when the time is up. Our suggestion.
3. Gather what you need. A clean, flat work surface with food and drink kept away. A way to scan. A soft graphite pencil. Plain paper for your lists. A computer folder called Scans in Progress. And a second place to copy files, like an external drive, a cloud account, or both. Our suggestion. The clean, dry work area comes from Library of Congress and National Archives handling guidance.
4. Count the boxes, not the photos. Sort the boxes first, not the photos. For each box write down where it lives, what kind of things are in it, a rough count, and its condition. Give each box a number and a priority: 1 means first, 2 next, 3 someday, and S means stop and ask for help. To choose your first box, ask: if this box were lost tomorrow, what would I most regret? Write the number on the box or the lid, not on the photos. The Library of Congress says to avoid marking photographs whenever possible. If you must, write on the back near the edge with a soft graphite pencil. It says it is preferable to mark the housing materials. Source: Library of Congress for the marking advice. The box inventory and the priority numbers are our suggestion.
5. The S list: stop here. If anything looks or smells moldy or musty, set it aside. The National Archives says mold can be a health hazard to people, so limit handling of moldy items. Also set aside photos that are stuck to each other or to glass or plastic, rolled up tightly, or in many fragments, albums with damaged bindings, and old film negatives you are not sure about. The National Archives says to contact a conservator if you cannot safely solve a problem with correct storage and handling. Its examples include rolled items that cannot be unrolled without tearing, items stuck together, and mold. This video does not cover cleaning, repair, flattening or mold. Source: National Archives.
6. Make four piles. When a box is open, make four small piles. Scan now: good condition, and you know or can guess who and when. Scan and tag later: you want it but cannot identify it yet. Maybe: duplicates, blurry ones and near copies. Set aside: anything fragile, stuck or damp. Nothing is thrown away today. Never sort with tape, sticky notes, paper clips or rubber bands. The Library of Congress says not to use paper clips, rubber bands or other mechanical fasteners to mark or organize prints, and not to use tape, sticky notes, glue or other adhesives on photographs. Use separate piles on a table, or sheets of plain paper under each pile. Source: Library of Congress for the sorting rule. The four piles are our suggestion.
7. Scan in small batches. A batch is a small stack you can finish in one sitting. Pull about twenty to thirty prints from one box, in the order they came, and put the rest of the box away, closed. Write the batch in a log: box number, date, device and settings. Look at the back of each print, and scan the back too if there is writing. Hold prints by the edges. The Library of Congress says to use clean hands, or clean nitrile gloves, and to avoid touching the image area. Clean the scanner glass first. The National Archives says the whole original should fit on the scanner, because the lid can crush and crease one that does not. Source: Library of Congress and National Archives. The batch size of twenty to thirty and the log are our suggestion.
8. Name the files right away. Archive guidance says to use only the letters A to Z, with no spaces or symbols, and to use hyphens and underscores instead of spaces. It also says to give scanned photos descriptive names, for example starting with a date, and to stay consistent. A simple pattern is the date, a short description, then a number. If you do not know the date, use what you do know, like the word unknown plus the box number, so you can trace any file back to its box. Source: National Archives and Library of Congress digital preservation guidance. The date, description, number pattern is our suggestion.
9. Check it, then copy it. Before you scan a hundred, scan one and open it on a computer, not just your phone. Is the whole print there, with nothing cut off? Look for stripes or smears, which come from the scanner glass, not the photo. Zoom in to one hundred percent on a face. Is it sharp? Is it the right way up? Is the file named the way you meant? Then check every batch: count the files against the stack and look at every thumbnail. Copy the batch to a second place the same day, because a scan that exists in only one place can still be lost to a failed drive. The 3-2-1 rule, from the US cybersecurity agency CISA: keep three copies of any important file (one primary and two backups), on two different kinds of storage, with one copy offsite. If a scan looks wrong, rescan, and keep the untouched master scan, editing only a copy. Source: CISA for the 3-2-1 rule. The checks, the same-day copy and the untouched master are our suggestion.

The whole method: inventory, choose a way to scan, set up, scan in batches, check and copy. One box that is scanned, named, checked and backed up is worth more than ten boxes that are half done. Your next fifteen minutes: count your boxes, pick your priority one box, and book your first session, with an end time. Our suggestion.

Where the facts come from

Library of Congress (Preservation and Digital Preservation), National Archives (NARA) family archives guidance, CISA (data backup guidance). Sources checked October 16, 2026.

General information only, not professional conservation advice. No result is promised.

More videos

• How to Digitize Old Photos With Your Smartphone