Build a ‘best of’ album by going through your organised photo collection and picking a small number of standout photos from each period or event, aiming for a shortlist the whole family will actually enjoy browsing, rather than trying to include everything worth keeping.
What you need
- Your already-organised photo collection (by decade, event or timeline)
- A new album or folder for the ‘best of’ selection
- A rough target number, such as 5-10 photos per major period or event
Set a rough limit first
Set a rough limit before you start, such as choosing your top 5-10 photos from each decade or major event, since without a limit it’s easy to end up selecting nearly everything again. Remember this album is meant to be quick and enjoyable to browse, so being selective is more important than being comprehensive.
How to build the “best of” album
- Create a new album or folder called something like ‘Family Best Of’.
- Go through your organised collection one period or event at a time, rather than trying to judge the whole collection at once.
- For each period or event, pick your top few photos — the clearest, most meaningful, or most representative shots.
- Add your selections to the ‘Best Of’ album as you go.
- Once you’ve been through the whole collection, review the album as a whole and trim further if it still feels too large to browse comfortably.
- Share the finished ‘Best Of’ album with family members as an easy, enjoyable way to revisit the collection’s highlights.
Check the album feels right
Browse the finished album from start to finish and confirm it feels enjoyable and manageable to look through in one sitting, rather than still overwhelming. Ask a family member to look through it and see whether it captures the highlights they would expect.
If narrowing down feels impossible
If you’re finding it hard to be selective, try picking just one photo per event first as a strict pass, then allow yourself a slightly looser second pass to add a few more standouts you missed. It’s fine to have more than one ‘Best Of’ album — for example, one for each decade — if a single album for the whole family history ends up too large.
Next step
Once you have a ‘Best Of’ album, it makes a great starting point for a photo book, since you already have a curated, manageable set of standout images to work with.
Sources and date checked
Researched from general published guidance on curating personal photo collections, not a hands-on test performed for this article. Date checked: 22 September 2026.