How to Make a Yearly Photo Book with Chatbooks (Step by Step)
My kids flip through our yearly photo books all the time.
Not the thousands of photos sitting on my phone.
The actual books sitting on our shelf.
They look through old vacations, birthdays, holidays and completely ordinary moments I probably would have forgotten about otherwise.
And honestly, this is the whole reason I care about organizing family photos in the first place.
The goal isn’t just a clean camera roll. It’s getting those memories somewhere your family can actually see and enjoy them.
One of my favorite ways to do that is by making a yearly family photo book with Chatbooks. Here’s how I do it.
Why I Make a Family Photo Book Every Year
Think about how many photos you take in a year. Now think about how many of those photos your kids actually see.
For most of us, thousands of pictures get taken and then quietly disappear into our camera rolls.
A yearly photo book gives those pictures a home. Instead of trying to scrapbook every event or create elaborate albums, I make one book that tells the story of our year.
It includes the big things:
- Birthdays
- Holidays
- Vacations
- School events
- Family pictures
But I also include the everyday moments. Messy kitchens. Kids being silly. Ordinary afternoons. Pictures around the house.
Those are often the photos I love the most a few years later.
Before You Start Your Chatbooks Yearbook
There’s one thing that makes this process much easier:
Choose your favorite photos before you start building the book.
If you’ve been using the heart icon in your iPhone Photos app throughout the year, you’re already ahead. Your Favorites collection becomes your shortlist.
Instead of opening Chatbooks and trying to choose from 10,000+ photos, you’re choosing from a smaller collection of pictures you’ve already decided matter.
If you haven’t been using Favorites, that’s okay. Before you start your book, spend a little time going through the year and tapping the heart on the pictures you know you want to remember.
Don’t overthink it. You’re not choosing the perfect photos. You’re choosing the photos that tell the story of your family’s year.
Download Chatbooks and Start a Yearbook
Download the Chatbooks app and create an account if you don’t already have one.
I use their Yearbook option for our yearly family books. Choose the year you want to create and start a new book.
Choose Your Book Size
For our family books, I like an 8×8 hardcover. It’s large enough that the photos look great, but it’s still an easy size for my kids to pull off the shelf and look through.
More importantly, I’ve stuck with the same general style from year to year. That means our yearly books look like a collection when they’re lined up together.
You don’t have to choose the same size I do. Pick something you like and can realistically see yourself ordering every year. Consistency is more important than finding the “perfect” book.
Choose Your Photos
This is where organizing your photos beforehand pays off.
When I’m choosing pictures for our book, I prefer selecting them myself rather than relying entirely on automatic photo selection. I want our book to include the moments I remember from the year.
If you’ve already marked your best pictures as Favorites, start there. Choose a mixture of:
- Big milestones
- Holidays
- Vacations
- Birthdays
- School memories
- Family pictures
- Candid photos
- Everyday life
Don’t feel like every picture needs to be technically perfect. A slightly blurry photo that captures your child’s personality may mean far more to you ten years from now than a perfectly composed picture.
Keep the Pages Simple
One of the easiest ways to never finish a photo book is to turn every page into a design project. You don’t need to.
I personally love using one photo per page when I can. It gives the picture room to breathe and keeps the book from feeling cluttered.
But you can absolutely use collage layouts when you have several photos from the same event. For example:
There isn’t a right or wrong way to do it. The goal is to finish the book and order it.
Put Your Photos in Order
For a yearly family photo book, chronological order is usually the easiest. Start in January and work your way through December.
This naturally turns your photo book into the story of your year.
If something ends up out of order, you can rearrange pages while you’re editing your book.
And don’t stress about getting every single photo in the exact order it happened. Your children are not going to care whether the zoo trip happened on June 12 or June 19. They’re going to care that the memory is there.
Customize Your Cover
I like to keep yearly photo book covers simple. Choose a favorite family photo or another image that represents the year and add a simple title. Something like:
Or simply the year itself. That’s enough.
Again, you’re creating something you can realistically repeat every year. You don’t need to spend an hour designing the cover.
Add Captions — But Only If You Want To
You can add captions and other details throughout your book. They’re wonderful when there’s a story you know you’ll want to remember.
But don’t convince yourself that every photo needs an explanation. It doesn’t.
If writing captions for 100 pictures is what’s stopping you from ordering the book, skip the captions. Finished beats perfect.
You can always add a few captions for particularly meaningful memories and leave the rest alone.
Review It and Order the Book
This sounds obvious, but it’s important. Don’t let your finished photo book sit as a draft forever.
Do one final review. Look for:
- Accidental duplicate photos
- Blank pages
- Photos cropped in an odd way
- Important pictures you forgot
- Obvious spelling mistakes
Then order it.
Your photo book doesn’t need to contain every single memory from the year. It just needs to contain enough of them to bring that year back when your family opens it later.
You Don’t Have to Finish Your Photo Book in One Sitting
This is another reason I like making yearly books digitally. You can work on your book a little at a time.
Do January through March one night. Come back another day and work on summer. Finish the rest over the weekend.
You don’t need six uninterrupted hours and a perfectly quiet house. Sometimes 15 or 20 minutes is enough to make progress.
The Trick That Makes Next Year’s Book Much Easier
Once you’ve finished this year’s book, start preparing for the next one immediately. Not by making another photo book. Just start favoriting photos as you take them.
When your child does something hilarious in February? Heart the picture.
Great family picture in June? Heart it.
First day of school? Heart it.
Christmas morning? Heart your favorites.
By the end of the year, you’ve already done a huge part of the work. Instead of starting January with thousands of photos to sort through, you’ve spent the entire year quietly building your photo book shortlist.
That tiny habit can make a huge difference.
When Should You Make Your Yearly Photo Book?
I like the idea of making it an annual tradition. For many families, January makes the most sense because you’re looking back at the year that just ended while it’s still fresh.
But you could also make yours:
- At the end of the school year
- Every summer
- Around your anniversary
- During a slower season each year
It doesn’t matter when you do it. What matters is choosing a rhythm you can repeat.
Imagine having one book for every year of your children’s childhood sitting together on your shelf. That’s the goal.
But What If Your Photos Aren’t Organized Yet?
This is where people tend to get stuck. It’s hard to make a yearly photo book when you’re staring at thousands of screenshots, duplicates, random downloads and years of pictures mixed together.
Don’t let that stop you from starting.
If you’re not even sure how organized or protected your phone photos are right now, start with my free 5-Minute Phone Audit. It will help you figure out where you stand and what you should tackle first.
Not Sure Where to Start?
Find out what’s happening with your photos and what to tackle first — in less than five minutes.
Take the Free 5-Minute Phone Audit →And if you’re ready to actually get your photo mess under control, that’s exactly why I created Beyond the Camera Roll. It’s my step-by-step system for helping moms organize, protect and finally do something with all those photos sitting on their phones.
You’ll learn how to:
- Protect your photos before cleaning them up
- Get rid of unnecessary photo clutter
- Organize thousands of photos without getting overwhelmed
- Create a system you can maintain
- Make your favorite memories easier to find
- Start turning digital photos into things your family can actually enjoy
And if you’re a visual learner, there’s also a video option with step-by-step tutorials you can follow on your own phone.
Ready to Get Started?
Because the goal was never just an organized camera roll. It’s making sure today’s memories don’t spend the next 20 years sitting on your phone.
Learn More About Beyond the Camera Roll →
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