Hi folks,
This challenge will take more words to describe, but hopefully, you will find enormous use for the results of learning this challenge.

The scene:
My regular image backups are getting loaded.
These might be external hard drives, DVDs, or an extra internal drive.
( I am going to use DVDs as my archive example. You substitute your drive letter if you use an external Hard Drive to store old images.)
(I am also, for the sake of simplifying, going to use TIME as the archival criterion)
By now you are familiar with the Data Base and how to search in Q-Ultimate.
So let’s Archive!

1) I see that I need to remove some old folders, from 2011 from one of the active hard drives.

2) All my folders have dates in the folder names, so I let SEARCH find folders from 2011 using the FILE/FOLDER button and narrowing the search to the overloaded drive... letter! I search for 2011 on D:\, and Ultimate finds 53 folders with 2011.

See snap 115 Remember to click on the picture to enlarge.
See snap 114 to show how to narrow the search to a specific Drive or Folder.

3) While these folders are listed in the search grid, I type in the DVD name that will hold these folders. (DVD 100, DVD 101) into the Creator box.
I also type into the Description box an event descriptor.
(Siesta Beach... Emerson Point...Venice Jetty....)

4) OK all set. That was the tedious part.

Now copy those folders onto your DVD discs to keep safe.
All done? Check them and make sure they are working fine. (Same for external drives)

5) The key item*
Now delete the images from the folders on the hard drive that you moved, BUT!
Do not delete the folders!
You now have empty folders... taking up virtually no HD space to speak of.

6) Now should I want to find some old pictures from the Venice Jetty that I took in 2011, I simply do a Data Base search for Venice Jetty AND 2011.
Bingo, that search will return a location.... DVD101

If I search for Ringling Causeway and 2011, I get 6 hits, located on two different DVDs, 109 and 110.

Epilogue: You can use any naming system you like...
I have some folders with names like, Ringling Rose Garden, or Jungle Gardens, 2003, 2004, 2005,
You can search for Jungle Gardens 200   the search will bring in all the Jungle Gardens folders for the decade.
If you added good descriptions to the description boxes in the Data Base, (like, parrots, or Egrets) you can make it easy to locate the folder you want.

Have fun... Use your own designs for naming and storage....
Next challenge will be to make your own DVD labels all in Qimage Ultimate!!!!
This goes together with Archiving to DVD

Fred

Hi Jeff,
Sounds like you are making a lot of smoke and effort on something that should be fun.
Just open a folder of images from last outing and scroll through the thumbs....
You should do this anyway because the second look at images after a "rest period" gives a second breath of air to a lot of shots.

Type in a word or two in the D box to remind you and allow you to find this folder at some later date. See snap 128
You see I have Cows Horses Rich and Will (the two friends that were with me)
With that now in the Data Base... all I have  to remember a year from now is   that we shot pictures of a horse, and a cow... or if I can't remember that, but I can recall that Rich was with me, all I need to search for is "RICH" and Qimage will find these shots.
Over to the right, is the C box. (originally designed for you to insert the Creator of the shots, assuming that perhaps that either you might have two cameras at the scene, and want to distinguish...) 
Example: My wife and I both took shots at her friend's birthday party.  We put them into the computer as Marcia Birthday M for my Marilyn's folder and Marcia Birthday F for my shots. In the C box, we put Fred in my folder and Marilyn in her folder.

Whatever... you can use that box for even more search criteria

Now comes the fun part.... slowly scroll through and find some interesting images that you might want to find later.

(I use a slightly different approach. I put the entire folder in the queue.  Ctrl A, right click on any thumb and add to queue.  Right click anywhere on the right side of the screen, and click slide show. Then I jot down the names of the images I want to tag that are popping in and out automatically.)

 Click the little "i" on the thumb and insert anything that will help you later to pull the shot.
For example. I put in the word PRINT if I have printed it, and Bird if it was a bird (obviously), and Egret, if it was an Egret (obviously).

Now go to the next oldest folder and do the same thing...

Try a search!   I can search for PRINT alone clicking the PHOTO button, and I will get a screen of thumbs that contain that tag, PRINT. These will be from various folders that have an image with that tag.
If I used BIRD as my search word instead of print, I will see all the bird shots I thought worthy of tagging whether they were Printed or not, and whether they were Egrets or not.

I talk to Terry every day, and I know he is having fun going back, way back, into his archived drives and adding labels and tags.
We consider this part of the fun, not work.
Some of Terry's photos are back when Queen Elizabeth was a little girl!!

Screen snap 129 is showing you the results of my Search for PRINT *OR* BIRD.
I could have searched Print AND BIRD. That would have returned only images that were birds and that I had printed.

I hope you are getting the hang of it.
If you still are a bit fuzzy on certain parts, email me, and I will make a little video for you covering what is fuzzy.
wathree.ssz@verizon.net

Ok my friend? 
Fred

Well, not that far back yet; 2013 is covered but the folder search is great for older images - I have all my digital images going back to 2002 on a 2TB USB 3 HD. Folders are dated and named, I just have to choose the right word to find something.
These older images are backed up on CD and DVD but I discovered recently that an old CD would not read any more. I shall re-archive the old CD's onto DVD - it's fortunate the images are on the external HD;  I should be able to tag those DVD's at that point.
Unlike you, I'm not as old as that!! 
Terry