This is a sponsored post, and people: It is a good one. That is because the product I’m about to write about solves a giant, really stressful, ongoing problem for me (and likely, you, too): Photo organizing.
There are zillions and zillions of photos in various places in my life which I do nothing. Tens of thousands on my iPhone. Hundreds on my Facebook feed. Some on Instagram and and literally, two on my family holiday card. Last time I saw my Grandma Shirley, she nagged about me sending more pics of my kids, Helena, 9, and Lucas, 7. Reasonable request (heck, the woman is kicking at 95, she can request whatever she wants!). It still slung a pit of guilt into my stomach. “If you don’t print out your pictures, your children won’t have any photographs of themselves when they grown up.” Grandma, laying it on thick!
She was right.
If you’re a mom like me, you take tons of pics of your cute kids. Also, your adorable cat, some friends and relatives, an occasional sunset, funny graffiti, or yourself on a good day (in good light, with a filter) to send to that hottie you’re dating.
Sometimes your mom emails you some pics of the kids when she was babysitting, or your kids’ classmate’s mom tags you on an action shot from the basketball tournament. Maybe your son’s dad uploads to a Google file some pics from camping.
They’re all awesome. You want to cherish them forever.
But they are everywhere.
Scattered.
Confusing.
Overwhelming.
And your awesome Grandma Shirley’s needling doesn’t help.
Add to the guilt the constant fear that those images will be lost — MIA should a phone or laptop get lost or dropped in the toilet (again).
So when Ever asked me to write about them, I nearly pooped my pants.
This little app really does offer photo management in a way that I was looking for. And, to my 40-year-old delight, offers a just-as-fabulous version your laptop or desktop. Call me a foggie, but my sausage fingers work best on a full-sized keyboard.
Here’s the big picture of why Ever is so rad:
- It pulls all your pics from all your devices, and all your apps (photostream, Facebook, Google Photos, Gmail backup, Dropbox, Instagram, Amazon photo backup, Flickr, Outlook). Puts them in the cloud, in one place.
- All these pics are automatically stored in the cloud. Translation: They are safe, and you don’t have to do anything extra to make them safe. (Ever calls it “multi-source backup” and that makes me feel warm and cozy.)
- Make quick, easy and beautiful Ever Books physical photo albums. Your pics are already in Ever. No need to spend your Saturday afternoon waiting for images to manually upload to a site to make photo books (you know which companies I’m talking about, and if you got my Christmas card, you know I’ve been a customer!).
- A really, really cool ‘Friends’ feature that uses sophisticated algorithms to find the important people in your life, and organize memories around them.
- It’s free. The basic, free app is plenty to get you started. For a wee $11.99 per month, Ever Plus offers unlimited storage, desktop access, and one free Ever Book with annual purchase (whee! More on that below!).
Plus, since all your fabulous, precious photos are now safely protected by Ever, you can delete them from your phone, saving all your memory, and boosting speed. Remind me to tell you about the family vacation two years ago when I spent the entire three-week road trip deleting pics from my phone before every photo opp because of a full disk. I made that mistake so you don’t have to.
But the real benefit of my new affair with Ever is that I stopped stressing and feeling so guilty about ignoring my pics.
Here is a quick run-down of how easy it is to set up Ever:
1. Download the app to your phone:
Or the desktop version:
2. Toggle where you want Ever to pull photos from, and back them alllll up with a single click:
3. Watch the magic as Ever creates albums for you.
Clusters of pics around your favorite people, or a trip, or holiday are automatically collected for you, so lazy moms like me don’t have to (you can also edit them to make albums your own.)
4. Share these albums with those you love most (or, those you feel obliged to. Keeping it real).
5. Delight in re-discovering old pics you’d forgotten about. Like these doozies:
5. Create the prettiest, most affordable, and easiest hard-cover paper photo albums ever, starting at $19.99.
But here is the real value of Ever: You reclaim your life. Think about it. You’re constantly creating memories with your family. And with your phone camera, constantly recording those memories. Now, instead of stressing about what you will do with those beautiful pics — and when — you can focus on living in the moment.
And that, my fellow mom, is the best picture ever.
This post was created in partnership with Ever.
The post This one app solves my giant, growing photo organization problem appeared first on Emma Johnson.