Windows 10 and photos

[QSIMDO]

When I migrated to Win 10 most of the photos that I can link to in email are in files.
I literally have to search through every file before I find what I want.
(It wasn't like that in 7)
However, when I go into Photos on the start menu there's all my pics wide open.

Any idea how I can free the attachable photos from those files?

[J Tiers]

Mistake #1 is using any of the "pre-provided" default Windows file folders. They are AFU.

I keep ALL data in a different place, and keep photos by date. I have a big document that shows a short description of what is in each date, and I can just search it for a keyword to find what I am looking for.

[MikeWI]

If I'm understanding what you're looking for, you just need to change your view options in the file explorer.

[QSIMDO]

I've tried that and it merely rearranges the files.
I want to get the pictures out of the files and let 'em swing free, commando style...meaning I want the pictures displayed separately.

[Paul Alciatore]

Pictures ARE FILES. EVERYTHING in your computer's storage, on your hard drive or on a floppy, CD, DVD, RAM disk, etc., even your programs and all of the Windows operating system; everything is stored in FILES. And all files are stored, either in the root directory of a hard drive or in a sub directory. Folders (directories) are how the files (including photos and even videos) are organized. This is much like a physical filing cabinet with cardboard file folders, which hold your papers, in it. And since pictures ARE FILES, you can not "take them out of the files". It is all a matter of how you VIEW those files.

Microsoft has tried to make this easier for aunt Sara by labeling the various folders with names like "Documents", "Pictures", "Music", "Videos", etc. Then, in a further attempt to make things easier for the computer illiterate, they invented artificial lists of the file folders under the idea of "Users". Naturally, all of these attempts to make things easier just make them more complicated.

Go to the local library and find a book on MS DOS. In it there will be an explanation of the file structure of computers BEFORE all these attempts at making things simpler. That, basic file structure, is still there in your and all other computers. It is a simple, inverted tree with a ROOT directory and limb and branch directories within that. The leaves on this tree are your files.

What you need to do is either make the needed selections on how those files are viewed (I find the old, DOS file structure is the easiest to understand and manage) or do a proper organization of those files in that basic, DOS style file structure.

Since you had Win 7 before, you should have a file structure there but it is hard to say how well organized it is.

If you could take a screen shot of the FILE EXPLORER window and post it that would give us a place to start giving you some specific advise. Open FILE EXPLORER and take a screen shot by pressing the PRINT SCREEN button. Then open up the PAINT program and press Ctrl-V to paste that image into the blank screen there. Save it with a file name and post that file here.

Here is the File Explorer window from my computer. I have blacked out some names for privacy. This is the way I like to view the directories and files in my computer. There are other choices which again are more confusing because they are not the basic file structure.



I added some outlines to clarify what is shown. The red outline shows where the basic, DOS style directory structure exists. This red outline contains ALL the files on my computer. ALL OF THEM are in the hard disks shown there. They are in the root and sub directories of those hard drives.

The blue outlines are the artificial groupings of Microsoft's attempts to make things simpler for the computer illiterate. Nothing in those blue outlines is a part of the real directory structure. NOTHING! Everything inside those blue outlines are just links to the actual files in the hard drives outlined in red.

In all probability, if you start with the Local Disk (C): hard drive symbol in your File Explorer, you will find, somewhere in the actual/real directory tree there, your photos as they are actually stored on that hard drive. But, of course, you could have them on another hard drive.

I've tried that and it merely rearranges the files.
I want to get the pictures out of the files and let 'em swing free, commando style...meaning I want the pictures displayed separately.

[JoeLee]

This is one of the reasons why I don't want to switch from Windows 7 to 10.

JL.....

[J Tiers]

This is one of the reasons why I don't want to switch from Windows 7 to 10.

JL.....

I find that 10 is no worse than, and possibly a bit nicer than 7. I was forced to switch due to software requiring it. Did not want to. Actually bought a new computer to run 10, due to needing newer display card to satisfy the updated software (snuck in under the wire, since those are in short and expensive supply these days).

Anyhow, I preserved the old file structure in 10, and it works like it always did.

Yes, pictures are just files, and can be stored anywhere. The picture IS the file, and the file IS the picture. I get the feeling that the OP is using 'files" to mean the structure, and not the picture file. He is really talking about "directories" and not "files".

I repeat that the worst thing you can do is to use the Windows pre-set file system. A number of reasons

1) Any malware zeroes in on the Windows default areas first to scramble up and encrypt. Maybe it gets everything eventually, but those are a "given":

2) Storing in those places allows windows to "assume" the files are, say, pictures, and may affect what you can do with them. I don't use those areas, so it does not affect me. But it appears that some things are restricted due to what the OS assumes about files stored in those areas.

3) It makes backing up your data very hard. The various "special" areas are scattered, and not under one heading. So backups mean you need to know where they each are and how to find them. With all my data under one top level filename, I can backup all the diverse types of files by referencing one single location, and backing up everything "under" that top level directory.

4) By using those areas, one can become lazy and fail to properly organize within the overall directory. That makes finding anything very difficult. When you set up your own, you organize them any way you like, because you have to.


Full disclosure: I now have about 80 GB of data on the computer. CAD models, pictures, part data PDFs, programming projects, design projects, correspondence, articles for the magazines, stuff related to City business, etc, etc. Yes, it is a lot, and I have a number of different backup types, from memory sticks for short term, to terabyte drives.

If you have a lot less, then throwing it into the Windows "piles" may not be so bad. But it still has the same disadvantages.

[PStechPaul]

One "gotcha" in Windows 10 is the "One Drive" system, which stores your documents in the "cloud", and possibly not with a copy on your hard drive, unless you set things up differently. So, I suggest copying any pictures and other documents you want to keep safe, onto one or more USB thumb drives or external hard drives. You should also have some sort of automatic backup system. I would also suggest that you get one or more good books about computers in general, and Windows in particular, and/or take a computer class. There are also excellent (as well as horrible) on-line tutorials and YouTube videos. I don't know just how much you already know, or how well you comprehend such technological information, so find a comfortable starting point and expand from there. I've been working with computers since the late 1960s, so I have a lot of experience, but there is so much new stuff appearing every day that it's only possible to focus on the basics and particular items that you need.

I have folders in my "Pictures" folder for every month, labeled like "2021_11", "2021_10", etc. Each folder contains the full size (3000x4000) images I download from my camera via USB, and I use "Paint" to shrink them by 20% to 800x600, which is what I use to upload to forums. But I keep the originals in case I want to do cropping or editing. The originals are labeled like "DSCN6789.jpg", and I label the copy with descriptive text, like "Garden_Shed_6789_painting.jpg" so that I can do a search for images in "Pictures" and find any files that have the word "Shed" or "painting". I also started an index in spreadsheet format with more detailed descriptions and a local URL like "C:\Users\paul\Pictures\2021_11\Garden_Shed_6789_pa inting.jpg", that takes me to the picture. But I found that too time intensive, and I can usually figure out which month has the picture I want, or I just use the search.

[edit] Weird! I tried to remove the space between "pa" and "inting", in "painting" and it keeps coming back!

[jmarkwolf]

Sounds to me like the OP want a photo browser, to review pics independently, rather than in some folder-wide archive.

[QSIMDO]

Pictures ARE FILES. EVERYTHING in your computer's storage, on your hard drive or on a floppy, CD, DVD, RAM disk, etc., even your programs and all of the Windows operating system; everything is stored in FILES. And all files are stored, either in the root directory of a hard drive or in a sub directory. Folders (directories) are how the files (including photos and even videos) are organized. This is much like a physical filing cabinet with cardboard file folders, which hold your papers, in it. And since pictures ARE FILES, you can not "take them out of the files". It is all a matter of how you VIEW those files.

Microsoft has tried to make this easier for aunt Sara by labeling the various folders with names like "Documents", "Pictures", "Music", "Videos", etc. Then, in a further attempt to make things easier for the computer illiterate, they invented artificial lists of the file folders under the idea of "Users". Naturally, all of these attempts to make things easier just make them more complicated.

Go to the local library and find a book on MS DOS. In it there will be an explanation of the file structure of computers BEFORE all these attempts at making things simpler. That, basic file structure, is still there in your and all other computers. It is a simple, inverted tree with a ROOT directory and limb and branch directories within that. The leaves on this tree are your files.

What you need to do is either make the needed selections on how those files are viewed (I find the old, DOS file structure is the easiest to understand and manage) or do a proper organization of those files in that basic, DOS style file structure.

Since you had Win 7 before, you should have a file structure there but it is hard to say how well organized it is.

If you could take a screen shot of the FILE EXPLORER window and post it that would give us a place to start giving you some specific advise. Open FILE EXPLORER and take a screen shot by pressing the PRINT SCREEN button. Then open up the PAINT program and press Ctrl-V to paste that image into the blank screen there. Save it with a file name and post that file here.

Here is the File Explorer window from my computer. I have blacked out some names for privacy. This is the way I like to view the directories and files in my computer. There are other choices which again are more confusing because they are not the basic file structure.



I added some outlines to clarify what is shown. The red outline shows where the basic, DOS style directory structure exists. This red outline contains ALL the files on my computer. ALL OF THEM are in the hard disks shown there. They are in the root and sub directories of those hard drives.

The blue outlines are the artificial groupings of Microsoft's attempts to make things simpler for the computer illiterate. Nothing in those blue outlines is a part of the real directory structure. NOTHING! Everything inside those blue outlines are just links to the actual files in the hard drives outlined in red.

In all probability, if you start with the Local Disk (C): hard drive symbol in your File Explorer, you will find, somewhere in the actual/real directory tree there, your photos as they are actually stored on that hard drive. But, of course, you could have them on another hard drive.

Problem with all that is I'm starting in a vacuum.
All of what you said is totally foreign.
I'm not computer savvy but, I can follow directions.

All I'm trying to get across is, in my picture storage area, many of the pictures are wide open and the others are stored in folders that need to be clicked to open and show the pictures stored there.
I'm looking to free the pictures stored in the folders is all and display them individually.

[MikeWI]

All I'm trying to get across is, in my picture storage area, many of the pictures are wide open and the others are stored in folders that need to be clicked to open and show the pictures stored there.
I'm looking to free the pictures stored in the folders is all and display them individually.

Ok, that's different from saying they're all in files. If you want to keep the photos in their folders AND view all of them at once as if they were all in one folder instead, then file explorer isn't going to do it. You'll need something like a photo management app. Lightroom is a great one for example, the also does a lot of other things, but the *@#$ thing is a cloud subscription app now, so I don't recommend it.

[J Tiers]

....................
All I'm trying to get across is, in my picture storage area, many of the pictures are wide open and the others are stored in folders that need to be clicked to open and show the pictures stored there.
I'm looking to free the pictures stored in the folders is all and display them individually.

Yo saying you want them all in one huge directory? Not what I would do, but if you want that, you want that.

In that case, all you need to do is go to the file explorer and move them out of the folders they are in to be out with the rest of the pics. You can delete the empty directories after the move.

Just a cut and paste operation.

Select all the files in a directory (folder), select "cut", then navigate to where you want them to be, and select "paste". That will move the files, and the folder they came from will be empty.

[George Bulliss]

Just a cut and paste operation.

In this case, where the OP has admitted to not being "computer savvy," I would suggest doing a copy and paste and then going back and clearing the duplicates once it proves successful. That's assuming the photos are indeed in multiple folders. I'm still thinking it may just be the view settings of the folders as others have suggested.

[J Tiers]

In this case, where the OP has admitted to not being "computer savvy," I would suggest doing a copy and paste and then going back and clearing the duplicates once it proves successful. That's assuming the photos are indeed in multiple folders. I'm still thinking it may just be the view settings of the folders as others have suggested.

Not a bad idea.

The only issue there is that I have found that few mess up the cut/paste, but doing the copy/paste, many get very worried and confused about what gets deleted. Some have even managed to delete everything.

So I no longer suggest that.

[CPeter]

Some of these replys are scary!! Unfortunately, one of the best programs to deal with photos for the non guru is Picasa. While no longer updated or supported, it is still available for download. I also use the "snipping tool" that is part of Windows 10. I do have Adobe Photoshop Elements and Primier, but Picasa is quick, easy, and FREE.
Peter