How to Organize Your PicMonkey Hub

Today I want to talk a little bit about how to organize your PicMonkey Hub.

As a blogger, I use PicMonkey all the time and collect quite a few photos and assets inside of my Hub.

It can get out of hand really quickly!

If your Hub is a hot mess – then these tips can help you dig out from under, too.

In this post I will talk a little bit about

my organization structure,
the process I use to bring photos into PicMonkey,
how to clean up the mess that might already exist in your Hub,
limitations of the PicMonkey Hub,
PicMonkey plans and pricing.

How I Structure My PicMonkey Hub

PicMonkey gives you the ability to use top level folders and subfolders to keep your Hub organized.

So you can have a top level folder and inside of that you’ll have all your smaller folders.

And by default, PicMonkey will start you off with one top folder that has your account name on it.

Inside of this default folder there is always one subfolder called Unsorted.

Note that you cannot delete the default folder or the Unsorted folder – it is not possible.

Managing the Unsorted Folder

When you create an image or when you upload an image, if you don’t file it anywhere, it lands here in this Unsorted folder.

My goal in organizing my PicMonkey Hub is to keep this Unsorted folder empty.

This means, on a regular basis, I need to file any images that land in this folder.

I also do not add more subfolders to my Default folder.

I try to keep the Default folder empty and use additional top level folders to hold all my projects.

Creating Additional Folders

Because I am a blogger and use images to illustrate my blog posts, I created top level folders by year:

2020 Blog Posts
2021 Blog Posts
and so on.

Inside these top level folders are subfolders for each post.

I name the subfolders with the following naming convention:

yyyy-mm-dd Title of Blog Post

I use this format so that the subfolders will appear chronologically in the left hand folder pane in my PicMonkey Hub.

This makes it easier to find the exact post that I am looking for.

In addition I create top level folders for different collections of projects.

For example, I have a top level folder for Logos.

Inside my Logos folder, I have subfolders for the different logos that I have designed for my site over the years as well as a folder for my headshots, and a folder for templates that I have created to use in PicMonkey.

I also have a top level folder for Stock Photos that I have purchased with subfolders for each service that I purchased them from.

Typically I use both Haute Stock and DepositPhotos for my stock – but sometimes I get photos from other sources.

Other top level folders include folders for:

Page graphics for my blog
Graphics for Opt Ins and Sales pages
Client work, and
a folder for Old Blog Posts (posts created before 2020)

Bringing Photos Into PicMonkey – the Process

For my blog posts I use photos from 3 main sources:

photos that I take myself on my iPhone or camera,
screenshots that I take for my technical tutorials, and
stock photos that I purchase.

When I sit down to write a new blog post, the first thing that I do is create a new subfolder inside the top level yearly folder using my naming convention that I mentioned above.

This subfolder is a container for all of the creative assets that I will be using for the post.

Then I upload all the photos and screenshots that I will be using.

One thing that I love about PicMonkey is that it includes a solid set of photo editing tools, so I can brighten, crop, and adjust color levels right within the platform. (But sometimes I will edit photos on my iPhone or in Apple Photos before I import them into PicMonkey.)

Once all my originals are uploaded into my Hub, I am ready to start creating.

I start with blank projects or templates, and then add the photos that I uploaded to my Hub.

Then I save the finished project to the same subfolder as the originals.

Because the original photos are sitting inside the subfolder, I can go back and create additional projects at any time.

This is great if you want to create a fresh pin to share on Pinterest down the road or for other social profiles like Instagram, as well.

How to Clean Up a Messy Hub

If you have been using PicMonkey for awhile, you may already find that your Hub is out of control.

PicMonkey only introduced the subfolder functionality recently – so before this, organizing your Hub was a little bit trickier.

Personally, I found that my Default Unsorted folder was full of junk.

This included projects that I created many many years ago, draft projects that I never finished, duplicate projects, and lots of random stuff.

Emptying the Default Unsorted Folder

To get started with organization, I created my top level folder structure that I mentioned above.

Inside each top level folder, I created a subfolder for All images.

Then I methodically went through each project/image in my Default Unsorted folder.

For each project/image, I either:

deleted it, if I didn’t need it any more or
moved it into the “All” subfolder inside the appropriate top level folder.

Once Default Unsorted folder was empty, I set my sights on sorting each “All” folder into more detailed subfolders that I would created inside the same top level folder.

Moving Folders That You Already Created

At some point in the past, I had attempted to organize my PicMonkey Hub by creating top level folders for each of my posts.

These folders were pretty well organized and included all the relevant photos.

But right now, in PicMonkey, you cannot drag top level folders into another top level folder.

Neither can you drag a subfolder from one top level folder into another.

To get around this, I created a new, empty, subfolder inside a top level folder with the name of the post, and then opened the original folder and dragged the entire collection of images into the new subfolder.

I then deleted the empty original folder.

Limitations of the PicMonkey Hub

PicMonkey seems to be continually adding new and awesome features to help with organizing your Hub.

This includes the recent subfolders feature.

But there are a few limitations that exist now which hopefully resolved in future updates.

First, you cannot drag and drop folders (both top level and subfolders) into other folders or subfolders.

Instead, you have to go into each folder and move the projects individually or in bulk.

Second, folders and subfolders appear in the left hand pane in ascending order – from A to Z with numbers appearing first.

You cannot manually reorder folders and you cannot sort folders in descending order.

This means that if you have a folder for your 2021 blog posts, for example, the most recent subfolder – using my naming convention of yyyy-mm-dd – inside will appear at the bottom of the list.

At the beginning of the year, this is not a problem because you will only have a few 2021 blog posts.

But by the time you get to December – you will have to scroll through a whole list of subfolders to access the most recent one at the bottom.

Finally, the PicMonkey Hub currently does not have a search function.

So, if you are searching for that one folder or project, you should have a good idea of where you might have filed it.

My hope is that PicMonkey is working to improve on some of these limitations of the Hub.

The PicMonkey Plans

As I mentioned – I use the PicMonkey Pro plan.

On this plan, I have unlimited Hub storage – which is good and bad 😉 because it, like I said, can get very crowded very quickly.

If you don’t have PicMonkey you can click here to grab a FREE 7 day trial.

With PicMonkey there are 3 plans to choose from:

Basic,
Pro, and
Team.

You can click here to see a comparison of the features of all three plans.

With the Pro Plan, you get

unlimited Hub storage
the ability to download your projects in jpg, png, or pdf formats
and the ability to upload your own fonts,
Smart Resize
Brand Kit
Background remover
Animation of elements
iStock by Getty photos
priority email support.

On the Basic Plan you get

1 GB Hub storage
the ability to download projects in jpg or png formats only,
and you cannot upload your own fonts.

Personally, I chose the Pro plan because I use all of the additional features.

Set Aside Time to Do the Work

As you can see, organizing your PicMonkey Hub is quite a process.

So, you need to both:

document your process and
set aside time to do the work.

Write down and make notes of the folder structure that you want to use in your PicMonkey Hub.

This is important, because if you don’t finish it all in one sitting – you will forget the approach you were using and where you left off.

Next, be sure to set aside time daily to finish the project!

Just get it done. 🙂

You Can Get Organized

The key to organizing your PicMonkey Hub is consistency.

Set up a structure for your folders and subfolders.

Create a process for all your creative assets and document it.

Take some time to file your Unsorted projects and images into your new structure.

And set time aside on a regular basis to keep your hub neat and tidy.

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How to Organize Your PicMonkey Hub