WD My Cloud Photos Management Tips for Beginners

Cloud has almost become a standard for data storage, another evolution, personal cloud is getting increasingly popular, especially among enterprises. WD My Cloud uses personal cloud technology to keep user data in a single-centric place. Unlike the cloud where the data is actually stored on remote servers across the world, WD My Cloud set up a secure private space that only the members of your enterprise can have access to.

Organizing WD My Cloud photos can be divided into removing duplicate (and similar) photos and organizing photos into a neatly laid out day/month/year folder structure. This all can easily be accomplished by PictureEcho.

Remove Duplicate Photos in WD My Cloud & Organize them

PictureEcho follows Google Software Principles

Prerequisites

Before following the steps given below, make sure you get the WD My Cloud icon to show in the File Explorer under the Network section.

Unfortunately, one of the required Windows components SMB 1.0/ CIFS File Sharing Support is not enabled by default on Windows 10 and above. You’ll need to perform the following simple steps to re-enable it.

1. Click on Start.
2. Type Windows Features.
3. Open Turn Windows features on or off.
4. Select the checkbox that says SMB 1.0/ CIFS File Sharing Support.
5. Click on OK.
6. Restart your computer for the changes to take effect.
7. Once you’ve restarted your computer, the WDMYCLOUD icon will pop up under the Network section in the File Explorer.

Now let’s get back to how you can organize your disorganized photos.

Organize photos by events

In order to quickly locate photos when you need them the most, it’s a good idea to organize them by their events. For example, you can create separate folders on your WD My Cloud, such as birthday parties, holiday gatherings, pet photos, study tours, office vacations, weddings, adventures, etc.

Organize photos by tags

Photo tags are text labels or sometimes colors that help you associate photos with a group of other photos. Tags are beneficial to organize and link visually similar photos across your storage drive and find them easily. Tags must be short and descriptive. You can edit them using the File Properties dialog box.

1. Right-click an image and select Properties.
2. Click on the Details tab.
3. In the Description category, you’ll find the Tag option.
4. Add tags one by one and then click on OK.

Similarly, if you’re using photo organization software, you’ll be able to change bulk image tags.

Compress Very Old & Unwanted Photos

File compression is the process of reducing the size of the original file. If you don’t need some very old photos, archiving them will help you save some storage on WD My Cloud. The quickest way to archive your photos is to right-click the parent folder containing your photos and select the Compress to Zip File option (for Windows 11). If you’re using an earlier Windows version, download a free file compression program such as 7-Zip File Manager.

Find & Delete Duplicate Photos

As your WD My Cloud photo library grows, so do the unwanted duplicate files. Simple file management operations such as copying and moving files from one location to another can result in a lot of duplication. Deleting duplicate files will free up storage for new files and get rid of the clutter.

There are two kinds of photo duplicates- Exact duplicate files that match byte-to-byte. Similar duplicate files that are visually similar in nature. Using the duplicate image specialization software PictureEcho, you can eliminate both of them.

1. Download and install PictureEcho.
2. Open up PictureEcho and click the Add Path button.
3. Go to the WD My Cloud partition in the Network category of your File Explorer.
4. Select the photos you want to scan for duplicates.
5. Choose Exact Match or Similar Match. If you’re selecting Similar Match, choose your desired similarity level using the slider.
6. Click on Start Search.
7. Once the scan is finished, review your files manually or use the Select Duplicates button to automatically review and delete /move your files.
8. Click on Select Action and choose between delete and move to a folder.

Organize photos by their dates

Organizing photos by their dates is another popular method. It gives you control over your photos and doesn’t require much effort to locate them. Create top-level folders for each year and then sub-folders for each month.

Fortunately, you don’t have to perform this step manually. PictureEcho already contains an in-house functionality to re-organize your files and save the DateTime.

1. Open PcitureEcho.
2. Select Image Organizer as your scan mode.
3. Add the files you wish to organize.
4. Set Organize by date created or date modified.
5. Set the Date Format to Year Month Day.
6. Choose how you want to Organize As (for example, Year/Month/Date).
7. Specify a destination folder and then start the process.