Everything I actually use to keep my family's memories — sorted by what each thing is for. Photo books, digital frames, backup, and the trunk I use to stop myself from keeping everything.
A few years into motherhood I had over twenty thousand photos on my phone and no real plan for any of it.
The problem wasn't that I didn't enjoy memory-keeping. I love it. That was actual part of the problem — I kept making more things, taking more pictures, and I couldn't “picture” keeping up that pace for the next sixteen years.
What finally helped wasn't a better app. It was thinking more intentionally about what I needed (and wanted) the memories for, and where they would continue to exist after I lived them. Once I understood why I was collecting these memories and where they were going, I was able to make a few more decisions.
The first happens before I pick up my phone: does this moment need a photo at all, and how many? I wrote about that in Less Snaps, More Living — deciding up front, before the moment starts, rather than defaulting to the camera.
The second happens afterward, with the photos I already have: which category does this belong to, and what am I making with it?
This post is about that second part. Here's the whole toolkit, sorted by category.
If you'd rather hear me talk through it, this is Episode 11 of Postcards for Posterity.
The four categories
In the moment — what's happening right now
Every day — what I want in front of us, around the house
For us — what I'm making for me, or for our family
For the kids — what they take with them when they move out one day (likely never happening right??)
Where it lives, and what happens if I lose it — underneath all four
These aren't about what I capture — that decision already happened. They're about where a photo goes once I have it, and what I end up making with it. A photo that belongs on the fridge usually isn't the one that belongs in her album, and that's much easier to sort out later than in the middle of the moment.
Jump to a section
1. In the moment
Most of what matters in this category happens before I pick up anything at all.
I used to default to the camera. I love being behind it, honestly, and I'm comfortable there. But I noticed I was observing my own life instead of being in it — outsourcing the memory to my camera roll and missing the thing I was trying to hold onto.
So now I decide up front: does this moment need a photo, and roughly how many? If the answer is no, the phone stays in my bag. I wrote out the questions I ask myself in Less Snaps, More Living — whether words would capture it better, whether the moment will repeat, whether stopping to shoot is going to break the flow for either of us.
And honestly, deciding that first is what makes the rest of this possible. If I take fewer photos, I actually sort them.
My iPhone
Still what I use most. The shift wasn't the device, it was taking fewer and writing more afterward.
My Canon
This one's an investment, and I'll be upfront that I bought it because I love photography, not because anyone needs a dedicated camera to document their family. I use it for the things I want to shoot properly: birthdays, trips, the occasional ordinary afternoon when I feel like it. Best for: if photography is a thing you enjoy, not just a thing you do.
Instax
Instant film. You get one shot, it prints right there, and somebody walks away holding it. I use these at gatherings especially, because the photo becomes part of the event instead of something I'll deal with later. Don’t forget the film. (More on how I use these at showers and parties coming soon.) Best for: events, guest books, giving a photo away instead of storing it
Voice memos
Free, already an app on your phone, and better than a photo for the things a photo can't hold — what someone's voice sounded like, what she actually said.
Lapse
I stopped editing my phone photos after a few years (again, too much time — and honestly, filters come and go). However, I do love Lapse — it’s a nostalgic film-style filter. It also will take the photo, but not show it to you immediately, so you’re not taking a thousand photos trying to get it “right”. Best for: making an everyday moment feel worth keeping
2. What's in front of us every day
This is the category I underestimated for years. These aren't archival. They're the things that put memories in our path without anyone having to go looking.
Aura Frame
A digital frame with an app. You load photos, set how long each one shows, and it cycles.
We've had ours about four years — my dad and stepmom gave it to us, and it's still one of the best gifts we've gotten. My daughter walks up to it and swipes through the photos herself.
The part I didn't expect: you can add photos to other people's frames from the app. I've bought one for my grandparents, my mom has one, and when we got back from Hawaii I had photos on all of them before we unpacked. You can comment on photos in the app too, and it's all private.
I still love pictures on a wall, but they do sort of become part of the background after a while. The frame doesn't, because it keeps changing.
Best for: grandparents, daily reliving, sharing with family who live far away
Alternative: Skylight — integrates with a calendar, which is useful if you want one device doing both. My husband's grandparents have one. I prefer the Aura interface, but sometimes it's just easier to have a product that only does one thing.
Mixtiles
Large prints that stick to the wall and come off without damage. I saw them for years before trying them and then kicked myself — they were genuinely the easiest thing, and the big ones make a real impact.
One honest downside (or upside?): you will get a lot of promotional email afterward. They seem to have discounts all the time — so that’s an upside.
Best for: big wall prints without framing, renters, anyone who hates drilling
Social Print Studio tiny book magnets
Tiny photo books that live on the fridge. My daughter loves them, and they're one of the few things in the house she interacts with on her own.
Best for: fridge-level, kid-height memories
View-Master
You can buy a View-Master and make custom reels (not the Instagram kind) from your own photos, and there's a little holder for the reels. I know it's a novelty, but that’s also why it’s fun – it makes for a good conversation starter, and not only my daughter, but her friends and our adult friends love to check it out.
Best for: making photos feel like a toy instead of an archive
Framed prints
Still worth doing! I love having our family memories framed around the house. Sometimes it feels though that they can become part of the background, so rotating images once in a (long) while can be helpful.
3. What I make for us
These are the things that I make for my family now, and would stay with my husband and me until we’re old. I don’t expect these to necessarily be passed down.
Choosing between book platforms? I wrote a full comparison of the four photo book services I've used for 15 years. And if you're printing loose photos for an album, I ordered 111 prints from 10 different companies to find out where it's worth printing.
Chatbooks
My monthly books. About $10 each, up to sixty photos.
I'm not great at journaling every day. I keep trying. But these feel easy in a way journaling doesn't — it takes me about an hour a month now. I pick the photos, and even though you can add captions and a text page — I have too much to write — so I use Canva to make a one-page written summary of the month that goes at the front, which ends up doing more work than the photos themselves.
They're small and flexible and cheap enough that when my daughter bends one, I don't care. They're in her room right now. Eventually they'll move to a family bookcase.
I thought about switching to yearly books. And maybe one day I will?But if I waited all year, I'd forget almost everything — so this system works for me best for now.
I also use Chatbooks for vacation books for now, mostly because they're the same size and it keeps everything consistent.
Best for: consistency, low effort, volume, little hands
Artifact Uprising
Where I go when I want something to last. Our wedding book and our five-year anniversary book are both Artifact Uprising, and the quality is noticeably different — thick paper, real binding, something that feels like an object rather than a printout.
I plan to do a family album every five years. That span is easier to curate than a single year, and it forces me to pick the things that actually mattered. Plus, having five years helps to edit down memories since you’re not as close to them.
Best for: milestones, heirloom quality, elevated gifts
Blurb
Professional-level control — an InDesign plugin, desktop software, real text-and-photo layouts. This is what I use for written book projects, including the grandparent interview books.
Best for: legacy projects, text-heavy books, anyone comfortable with design software
Shutterfly
Not my aesthetic for photo books, but genuinely good for gifts, and their ornaments are a December tradition in our house. Frequent sales. My mom loves it, and she isn't a designer or particularly comfortable with computers, which tells you something about the interface.
Best for: gifting, non-designers, photo products beyond books
The Keeping Book
A family journal with a page for every day of the year — and no year printed, so you write it in. That means the same book carries several years of the same date stacked on top of each other.
I connected with the creator of this recently, and bought it myself to try out. I love it. As I mentioned above, I haven’t been great at personally journaling, but this makes it easier for me to write things down from each day, and with the intention of knowing it will be shared. And because there's no obligation to write daily, I can sit down once a week or once a month and fill it in.
Best for: written memories you don't want buried in a personal journal
iMemories
Video is the thing I haven't solved, and I'd rather say that than pretend otherwise.
Photos are fast to judge — keep it, delete it, done. Video makes you sit through the whole clip to find the two seconds you actually want, and then multiply that by hundreds of clips. I've been working on a short compilation from our Japan trip for months, and it isn't even a real film.
So this is a platform that I hope continues to evolve, and it's one I use and like. iMemories stores your videos and — this is the part that matters most to me — has an app for smart TVs. For my daughter's birthday, I uploaded every video from that year and played them on a loop during our family dinner. I didn't have to spend hours making a compilation — they were just there, in the room, instead of sitting on my phone.
I organize by year. I just wish it had nested folders.
Best for: getting video off your phone and onto a screen your family will actually watch
InShot
Quick phone-based video trimming when I do want to make something short.
Best for: simple edits without opening a computer
Yoto Player
Custom audio cards — you can record your own voice. Sweet now, and I suspect priceless later. Learn more about how I use the Yoto here.
Best for: preserving voices, bedtime routines, audio keepsakes kids can use themselves
4. What they take with them
This is the one I've thought about the longest, because for years I told myself everything I was making was for her. Honestly? A lot of it is for me. Separating the two made both easier.
A trunk, as a constraint
The thing that's helped me most here isn't really a product, it's a limit.
I wanted something physical that would make some of the decisions for me. If it doesn't fit, it doesn't stay, or I have to slim something down to make room.
I use a trunk from Petite Keep. They're handmade, you can get a name and birth date embroidered on it, and you choose the fabric. They run around $400, so it's an investment, and I want to be straightforward about that.
Why I chose this one: I wanted something light enough that I could physically carry it out of the house in a fire or an earthquake. They look heavier than they are. It gets heavier as you fill it, obviously — but I can grab it.
I'll also say their customer service has been excellent. My first trunk arrived with slight damage and they replaced it without any trouble.
But you do not need this specific trunk. There are a lot of trunks on Facebook Marketplace for a fraction of the price. You could use a fireproof document box, or put things inside a fireproof bag and keep them in a sturdier trunk in a bedroom. A large suitcase would work.
The object matters a lot less than having something with an edge to it, and being thoughtful about protecting what's inside — water damage, mold, all the ordinary ways things get ruined when nobody's looking.
Three albums, 200 photos each
The thing I'm most excited about.
A friend pointed out that if she made a scrapbook for every year of her kid's life, she'd end up with eighteen scrapbooks. And I thought, that's a lot to take with you. Where do you even put that? Even if my mom handed me eighteen albums, I think I'd be like, that's really cool, but I don't know what to do with these.
So instead: three photo albums from Rifle Paper Co. 200 photos each. Birth through six, six through twelve, twelve through eighteen.
That works out to about thirty photos a year. Which, when I think about how I grew up, is genuinely plenty. Thirty photos a year was normal. It's only with a phone in your pocket that two or three a month sounds impossible. I’m working through four years now.
I bought all three up front so they'd match, and because the design happens to go with the trunk. Right now, they’re out of stock, but you can also find similar photo albums on Etsy, Michael’s, Hobby Lobby, and Amazon. Here are some alternative options:
MPix Slip-in Photo Album: I recently got this for a client and it’s very nice quality and you can customize the cover
Archival storage box (instead of an album)
Avoid the sticky scrapbooks — those make it hard to take the photo out and can cause damage to the photos over time.
Best for: a whole childhood in something she can actually carry
School Years book
Now that she's started school, I keep one book with a slot for each year's school picture, space for artwork or papers I want to save, and a few questions I can ask her at the end of every year.
Mine's from Etsy — there are dozens of versions and most of them are good. I’ve also seen file folders be a popular option. I was looking for something compact that I could keep stored in her trunk.
Best for: the slow-fill record that builds itself one year at a time
A folder for her artwork
Artwork is its own thing, and I haven't totally figured it out. It isn't photos, it doesn't fit in a book, and there's just so much of it — she makes me something nearly every day at school. I do really love having a few of her art in frames around the house like these.
Otherwise, I found this at Goodwill awhile ago, and have kept her artwork in here. It’s one of the things that doesn’t fit into the trunk, but it will continue to condense over time. And then she can select the artwork she wants to keep.
Best for: kid art, school papers, the things that don't fit anywhere else
Kept
A year-by-year summary book. I'm still experimenting with this one and haven't used it enough to have a strong opinion yet — but I like having somewhere to write down the bigger-picture version of a year.
Best for: a yearly overview rather than daily entries
Also in the trunk
The book I filled in for her first year — about eight hours of work, and I was so proud of it
Mini books from her first year and from my pregnancy (unfortunately the company closed and no longer makes them but they were so cute to have)
Clothes and cards she's been given
A USB drive with a wider edit of photos — still curated, because nobody is going through twenty thousand images
I'm the first photo editor. As she gets older I hope she'll help me, because these are hers and she should get a say in what stays.
Grandparent interview books
The generation above us is its own category, and one I care a lot about. I would hope that my daughter would take a copy of these to her own home one day. I design these in Blurb, and I have a version coming for anyone who wants to make their own. You can go here to get the grandparent interview kit, and sign up to the email list to get updates on a coming template.
Underneath all of it: where your photos actually live
This is the least interesting thing to talk about, and the one I'd most regret skipping.
What I use now:
iCloud — where everything lives by default. I'm on an iPhone; the Android equivalent is Google Photos or Google Drive. My long-term goal is to not be paying for it forever, but for now it's the main library.
Dropbox — for certain photos I want separated out.
An external hard drive — a physical copy. (Alternatively, this one connects to your phone.)
I say the hard drive is another layer and not the backup, because I actually lost all my photos once.
I was sitting on the edge of my bed with my laptop, and my external hard drive was plugged into it. The laptop slipped and fell, and the way it hit the ground crashed the computer and damaged the drive.
I got a quote of around two thousand dollars to try to recover the files — and the catch was that if they recovered even one photo, I owed the whole amount. If they got nothing, I owed nothing. I was in college. I couldn't afford to take that bet.
Both of my copies were in the same room, plugged into each other, at the same moment. I just hadn't thought about it that way before.
So what I do now: one copy in the cloud, one copy physical. Not because the cloud is necessarily better — platforms change, accounts get locked, companies disappear — but because the two of them fail for completely different reasons.
If you want a simple place to start
You don't need all of this. I've built it up over years, and plenty of it I'm still figuring out.
If you're starting from scratch:
Pick one photo path. Chatbooks if you want volume and consistency; Artifact Uprising if you want one beautiful thing.
Pick one daily path. A digital frame or a set of fridge magnets. Something that puts memories in front of you without any effort.
Set up one real backup. One cloud, one physical. Today, ideally.
Write a sentence next to a few photos. Future you won't remember the story, and the story is usually the part you wanted.
Give yourself a container with a limit. A trunk, a box, a suitcase — whatever you've got. It'll make some of the harder calls for you.
You don't need the perfect system. You need one you'll actually use that feels best for you. My hope is that this helps you think more intentionally about not just taking the photos or making the memories, but where you’re putting them to become accessible in the future.
Looking for gift ideas?
If you want meaningful, tangible ways to preserve memories — especially for grandparents — I put together a separate guide here: Tangible Memory Gifts Guide
Some of the links above are affiliate or referral links, which means I may earn a small amount or receive store credit if you buy through them — at no extra cost to you. Everything listed here is something I actually use.
The monthly letter
Want more ideas like this?
Get one letter a month with simple ways to keep your family's stories.
Get the monthly letter
Laura Branch on The Keeping Book, the family memory journal inspired by the one her mom has kept for 50 years.