If there's no intimate stuff there, send the scans to the Internet Archive
this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2026
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search for a creative reuse in your area. some examples are:
texas art asylum in houston and turnip green in nashville
I have inherited the family's photo archive which goes back before 1900. I keep it safe, and add to it as needed.
It's a history of my family, so I don't want it destroyed. Of course, other people may be less sentimental. It's your choice :-)
Find an abandoned building with some reputation near by. Use tape and glue to hang all the photos of people on every single wall. Scratch out all the eyes and draw them back on in a sloppy way that makes them look disproportionate and like they're all staring at the middle of the room. Place a single chair in the middle of the room. Place a teddy bear with a cigar in it's mouth on the chair. Melt a bunch of candles down to stumps in clusters around the room. It helps to cut a few grooves down the sides. Close the door and seal it with duck tape, like with 6 rolls of tape in every direction. Write "piss off!" On the tape in big painted letters. Have a friend call in a tip to the local news about weird noises in the area.
I've inherited a lot of photos, and also a bunch of negatives. I've gone and thrown out many vacation photos that weren't relevant or unique: if I need a photo of the pyramids, I'm fairly confident I can find one, lol. But I kept the one of my mom in front of the pyramids.
I'm in the process of scanning and organizing everything. Once I'm done, I'm planning on putting together five photo albums, all nicely labeled and organized. The first one's for me, of the people I loved or events I found special. Then one of each of the other albums for my nieces and nephews. There may be a handful of photos I copy and put in each album, but most of the pictures will be unique.
Also enclosed in the albums will be a family tree, and whatever biographical bits of information I can put together of our various relatives. And a DVD with digital copies of all the photos and negatives I scanned in, so everyone will have access to a full set of photos, as well as a subset of the originals. I also have some digitized 8mm home movies from the 1940s and 50s, with my grandparents in the 1970s narrating who the various people are, so I'll probably include a copy of that.
Honestly, I'm not sure how my nieces and nephews will feel about the albums, but it's the best connection I can give them to some of their roots and where their people came from. What they do with their albums afterward is up to them; I'll have honored the people in my past and provided what I can to the people in my future.
This is exactly the boat I’m in!
How did you digitize the 8mm? I managed to get through most of the VHS tapes I had with mixed results. 8mm looked daunting.
How old, really?
If they are very old, like 80 or 100 years, then maybe some museum or historician might be interested in keeping them (some of them).
Otherwise, after scanning them, do the unavoidable.
Yeah, probably about that range.
There have been a few good ideas here. A repeat is a local historical society, which I didn’t think of.
scan and archive. Never throw it away unless you really need to do it
Yeah, having the physical medium gives you a more trustworthy backup. Instead of all your hard drives getting wiped by the solar flare, you have multiple different mediums with strengths and weaknesses. I'm also inclined to hold onto physical copies.
You don't need to feel bad about throwing them out but you may also find takers at a local historical society or municipal archive. Photos are especially attractive to these groups if they have streetscapes, technology, vehicles etc.
See if your local artist school wants them for making collages
Local historical societies and any locations that still exist from those photos maybe ought to be given the option to save them if you don't want to keep them.
If you can identify people and locations all the better. Since you have scans you can provide a physical thumbnail sheet with what's going on in each one. Or do what they did in the old days and write on the back of them.
Check with your local midgets library, see if there's any nearby historical organizations that might want to take a look through. If they don't know of any, then you'd have to hunt down possibilities on your own, and while that might seem like a worthy effort, most old photos have little or no historical value. You've already scanned some. So, if you just don't want the images lost, scan the rest and chuck the physical
If nobody wanted them, including you, then you have your answer, no? Or maybe you are undecided? It sounds like you can't decide if you want to keep them or not. Nobody here can make that decision for you.
Personally I don't think an art project or a donation amounts to much more than avoiding the question of whether you want to keep them or not.
If you have scanned them, then you have a digital copy. I would destroy the physical copies.
throw them out.
there is nothing wrong with throwing out stuff. esp if it's junk to you.
Why feel bad? They're just things. If you have them scanned in then you can reprint them whenever you want.
What are they photos of? Who took them? This seems relevant.