Scan Old Photos Yourself or Send Them Away? An Honest Comparison

The boxes are stacked in the hallway: three albums with cracked spines, a shoebox of loose prints, a tin of slides nobody has looked at in decades. You have promised the family you will get them all digitised, and now you are stuck on the first decision. Should you scan old photos yourself or use a scanning service? Both work. The right choice depends on how many photos you have, what condition they are in, and how much you want to be part of the process.

The short answer

If you have a few hundred prints and want to sort and label them as you go, scan them yourself. If you have thousands of prints, or lots of slides and negatives, a scanning service will usually get it done faster. Many families end up doing both: they send the bulk away and keep the most precious photos at home.

When scanning them yourself makes sense

• The collection is manageable. A few hundred prints can be done over a few evenings with a phone scanning app or a flatbed scanner.

• The originals are fragile or irreplaceable. The only photo of a great-grandparent, or a print that is already cracking, may be safer never leaving the house.

• You want to sort while you scan. Handling each photo lets you set aside duplicates, group prints by decade and write captions straight away.

• The stories come up as you go. Scanning next to a parent turns into a conversation. Imagine your father picking up a print mid-batch and saying, "That's the day we bought the first car." You would miss that if the box were in the post. Old photos can be powerful memory prompts - see how letters, clippings and photos get grandparents talking for ways to make the most of those moments.

The trade-off is time. Doing it yourself is slow, and quality depends on your light, your patience and your equipment. The step-by-step guide to scanning a shoebox of photos covers how to keep it moving.

When a scanning service makes sense

• The volume is large. Thousands of prints can take months at home and a few weeks with a service.

• You have slides, negatives or film. These need special equipment to scan well, which most homes don't have.

• You want consistent quality. A good service scans everything at the same settings, which helps if you plan to make prints or films later.

• Time is short. Before a move, a sale of the house or a family event, speed can matter more than anything else.

The trade-off is that your originals leave your hands, and you lose the chance to sort and remember as you go.

Questions to ask before you send originals away

Not every service works the same way. Before you post anything, ask:

• Are all originals returned, and in the same order they were sent?

• How are the photos packed, tracked and insured in both directions?

• What resolution are prints and slides scanned at?

• How are the files named and organised when they come back?

• Do they keep copies of your images afterwards, and for how long?

• Can you mark a few prints for extra care or a higher resolution?

Whatever you decide, keep a list of what you sent, and photograph the most precious prints with your phone first, so nothing is ever only in one place.

The middle path most families take

Send the bulk of the prints and all the slides to a service. Keep the handful of irreplaceable photos at home and scan those yourself. If you use Glow, you can scan those prints with your phone camera straight into your private family space, where relatives can add names and stories by guest link, and Glow can suggest who's who across photos without naming anyone on a guess.

Whichever you choose, do these three things

• Sort before you scan. Remove duplicates and group by decade. Scanning what nobody needs wastes time either way.

• Label while memory is available. A name, a place and a rough year under each important photo is worth more than a perfect scan. If you are working with an elderly relative, reading about how to record a parent's life story when they don't use technology can help you capture those details before they fade.

• Keep two copies. Store the digital files in two places. The article on protecting family photos from floods, fires and moves explains why the originals need care too.

Whether you scan old photos yourself or use a scanning service matters less than starting. Pick one box this month, decide which path it takes, and set aside the three photos you would never risk losing. Those are the ones to scan first.