Two Google Photos features helped clear clutter and organize albums

A writer cleaned up a cluttered Google Photos library after old screenshots and QR codes made it harder to find a picture.

The library’s timeline sorts photos by date, but the writer often relied on scrolling instead of searching by keywords.

Google Storage Manager groups large files and other items that can be reviewed and deleted.

The writer also used search to find and remove screenshots, QR codes, old memes and documents, and used Stack similar photos to delete groups of similar or low-quality shots.

Google Photos can also remove local files that are already backed up, freeing space on a device.

To organize photos, the writer labeled people and pets and created Live Albums that automatically gather photos of selected people.

The writer said this made it easier to find photos by who is in them rather than when they were taken, and hopes to keep up the curation habit.