How can I sort out this Photo Mess?

[Gr33nbeans]

In Windows7, I had all my photos carefully placed in individual files. When Win 10 took over 7, it dumped almost all the photos into one, jumbled pile. (a gigantic folder) To find any photo now takes awhile, as there is little rhyme or reason as to where the photos are in this folder. Some have been scattered all through the pile.

What I really want to do is recreate the files. Is it possible? I can find no way to do that. Any new pictures I try to put into new folders is just dumped into the gigantic pile. I can pick the photos up but can't drag them anywhere. Is it possible to try an alternate idea; which is to restack the mess in the folder by putting the scattered items together? I'd still have a monster file, but at least I could find things easier if I could put them in order. I NEED order! This disorder is very distressing to me!

One more irritation: to get my photos onto a website, I have to put the photos into my email account, then email the photos to the website. What happened to that lovely little white box that let me send the photos directly without involving my email? Why has Win 10 gone backwards in this instance?

 

[Seymour Heiney]

I'm assuming before you upgraded you took a backup of your important files which kept the file structure, or at the very least a system image of your machine? If so, you may be able to simply restore the file and folder backup to the same directory as before, or if using software like Macrium Reflect, you could mount the image and pull out the directories which will keep their structure.

What photo organizing software do you use? If you use something like Lightroom, as I do, you could import the photos using date as primary key which would reorganize all your photos by date. There are other ways to import your photos, but when using Lightroom or Photoshop Elements Organizer, or other software organizers, the underlying structure becomes mute.

Sorry, but I'm not familiar with little white boxes that send photos to a website. Perhaps you could describe that a bit more?

 

[clifford_cooley]

I've been sorting my own files since before Windows 95. Here we are 20 years later with MS (as well as other application developers) user-friendly-ing organization skills out of the end-user.

At the expense of sounding like a jackass, it really is as simple as learning how to make your own folders. And then manually storing your files in those locations. Stop allowing applications to control your libraries, that is when things get disorganized. Especially when the applications don't agree on how the files need to be stored (example: WMP vs iTunes). Or in this case one OS version vs a newer OS version (if in-fact that is the problem).

TLDR: (Too Long Didn't Read)
All I'm saying is applications don't always agree and sometimes change how files are sorted. And manually doing it yourself with a file manager would alleviate any conflicting issues.

 

[Gr33nbeans]

I'm assuming before you upgraded you took a backup of your important files which kept the file structure, or at the very least a system image of your machine? If so, you may be able to simply restore the file and folder backup to the same directory as before, or if using software like Macrium Reflect, you could mount the image and pull out the directories which will keep their structure.

What photo organizing software do you use? If you use something like Lightroom, as I do, you could import the photos using date as primary key which would reorganize all your photos by date. There are other ways to import your photos, but when using Lightroom or Photoshop Elements Organizer, or other software organizers, the underlying structure becomes mute.

Sorry, but I'm not familiar with little white boxes that send photos to a website. Perhaps you could describe that a bit more?

*Windows 7, photo program. White box: the computers' "work" box that asked the user what to do with the chosen photo.*