A photo strip has a problem that a phone photo does not. It is too good to delete and too odd a shape to store, so it ends up in the one place where it definitively cannot do its job: a folder called Downloads, or a drawer, or the back of a wallet where it slowly bends in half.
The strip is a keepsake format. Its entire advantage over a camera roll is that it is a discrete object you can hold, hand over and put somewhere. If it never leaves a folder, it is just a badly-shaped JPEG.
Here are 24 things to do with them - displays, gifts, storage and a few genuinely good ideas - organised by how much effort each takes.
Six things you can do in five minutes
Behind a clear phone case
The classic, and still the best. A strip is almost exactly the right proportion for one side of a phone. You see it forty times a day and it costs nothing.
In your wallet
Behind the cards, folded once if it must be. This is the oldest use of a photo strip and it is old because it works. Laminate it if you want it to survive more than a year.
Taped inside a cupboard door
Not on the fridge front - inside a kitchen cupboard, where only you see it. A small private thing you encounter several times a day.
As a bookmark
The proportions are close to perfect. It also quietly dates whichever book you were reading, which becomes interesting later.
Inside a laptop lid
Taped to the inside of the screen bezel or the underside. Visible only to you, every time you open it.
Posted to someone
In an envelope, with nothing else in it. Receiving an unexplained photo strip in the post is a genuinely lovely thing and almost nobody does it any more.
Six ways to display a collection
A wire and clips
A length of picture wire across a wall with miniature pegs. Strips can be added and rearranged without committing to anything. Works best with eight or more.
A grid on a wall
Strips in even rows and columns, evenly spaced. The grid is what makes it look intentional rather than scattered. Use small pieces of washi tape so the paint survives.
A framed set
Three to six strips in one frame with a custom mount cut to a 2 × 6 aperture each. Any framing shop will cut a mount cheaply and it transforms the result from a collage into an object.
A corkboard, chronologically
Left to right by date, with room to keep going. The empty space on the right is part of the point.
On the edge of a mirror
Tucked into the frame around a mirror. There is a long tradition of this and it looks right in a way a deliberate arrangement never quite does.
A single strip, well framed
One strip, one good frame, on a shelf. Restraint reads as confidence. A wall of forty strips says "I take photos"; one framed strip says "this one mattered".
Six things to make
A year in one page
Twelve strips - one per month - mounted on a single sheet of card, dated. At the end of a year this is one of the most complete records of it you can hold.
A folding concertina
Strips glued end to end into a long accordion that folds into a small book. Opens to a metre or more of continuous photographs.
A photo strip zine
Fold and staple a few sheets of A4, one strip per page, a handwritten line under each. Twenty minutes of work and considerably more moving than a shared album.
Bookmarks as gifts
Print, laminate, punch a hole, add a ribbon. A small, specific, personal gift that costs almost nothing and is quite hard to buy.
A magnet set
Adhesive magnetic sheet from any craft shop, cut to size. Turns a fridge into a rotating exhibition.
A strip inside a card
Birthday, thank-you, apology. A photograph of the two of you inside a card does more work than anything written in it.
Six ways to actually keep them
Display is for the good ones. Storage is for all of them, and it matters more, because a strip you cannot find is a strip you do not have.
A 4 × 6 photo album
Two strips per pocket. Cheap, standard, holds hundreds, and it is the single best storage answer for physical strips. This alone is a reason to print two-up as described in how to print photo strips at home.
A tin
An old biscuit tin, dated slips of paper between years. Unsophisticated and extremely durable. Most families that have decades of photographs have them in a tin.
One folder, one naming convention
For digital: 2026-08-03-kitchen.jpg. Date first so it sorts chronologically. This takes ten seconds per strip and is the difference between an archive and a pile.
Backed up in two places
One local, one cloud. Phone storage is not a backup - a lost phone loses the lot. This is the least interesting item on this page and the most important.
Write on the back
Date, place, who. Do it at the time. You are certain you will remember and you will not - this is the single most common regret with old photographs.
A shared album for group strips
One album per friendship group, everyone can add. It becomes a collective record that no single person has to maintain.
What not to do
- Do not leave them only on a phone. Phones are lost, broken and stolen, and photo strips are exactly the sort of thing nobody realises is missing until years later.
- Do not laminate anything you might want to reprint. Lamination is permanent and it makes rescanning difficult.
- Do not hang them in direct sunlight. Inkjet prints fade noticeably within a year in a sunny window. Away from the window, decades.
- Do not use standard sticky tape on the print itself. It yellows and it will not come off cleanly. Washi tape, photo corners or removable putty.
- Do not wait for a perfect system. A tin with everything in it beats a beautifully organised archive that never gets started.
Which ones to keep
If you take strips regularly you will accumulate more than you can display, which raises an awkward question about what deserves a wall.
A rough rule that holds up:
- Keep the ones with a date attached to something. A move, a visit, an ending. Context is what makes a photograph survive.
- Keep the ones where somebody is not looking at the camera. These age better than the posed frames, always.
- Keep the bad ones. The blurred, the badly-lit, the one where somebody sneezed. These become the funniest and most-shared ones within about two years.
- Do not agonise. Storage is cheap and the strip you nearly discarded is frequently the one that matters later.
The strips people regret losing are almost never the carefully composed ones. They are the accidental ones from an ordinary day that turned out to be the last time everyone was in the same room.
Start with one
Print one strip this week and put it somewhere you will see it. Inside a cupboard, behind a phone case, in a wallet. That is the whole thing.
The reason photo strips work is that they are objects, and objects get encountered. A file has to be sought out; a strip taped inside a cupboard door finds you.
If you need one to start with, the booth takes about thirty seconds, and starting a photo strip tradition makes the case for doing it regularly rather than once.
Frequently Asked Questions
What can I do with photo booth strips?
The quickest options are behind a clear phone case, in a wallet, taped inside a cupboard door, or used as a bookmark. For a collection, a wire with small clips, an even grid on a wall, or three to six strips in one frame with a custom-cut mount all work well.
How do you store photo strips long term?
A standard 4 × 6 photo album with two strips per pocket is the best answer - cheap, widely available and holds hundreds. Keep them out of direct sunlight, since inkjet prints fade noticeably within a year in a sunny window, and write the date on the back at the time.
How do you display photo strips on a wall?
An even grid with consistent spacing looks intentional in a way a scattered arrangement does not. Use washi tape or removable putty rather than standard sticky tape, which yellows and will not come off cleanly. A single well-framed strip often reads better than forty on a wall.
What is the best way to organise digital photo strips?
One folder, one naming convention with the date first - 2026-08-03-kitchen.jpg - so files sort chronologically. Back up in two places, since phone storage on its own is not a backup and photo strips are exactly the kind of thing nobody notices is missing until years later.
Which photo strips are worth keeping?
The ones attached to a specific event, the ones where somebody is not looking at the camera, and the bad ones - blurred, badly lit, mid-sneeze. Those age best and get shared most. Storage is cheap enough that agonising over it is rarely worth the effort.
How can long-distance couples display shared photo strips?
Print two copies of your shared virtual strip—one for each partner. Slip them behind clear phone cases, stick them to your refrigerators, or frame them on your desks so both of you share a physical reminder of the moment every day.
Sources and further reading
- Scrapbooking - The long tradition of keeping printed photographs in a physical, arranged form.
- Photographic printing - How a photographic print is made, and what determines how long one survives.