Digital Hoarding Test

What is digital hoarding?

Digital hoarding is the habit of piling up digital stuff, like photos, screenshots, chats, files, tabs and saved posts, and finding it hard to delete. Storage is cheap and out of sight, so most of us now save first and sort later, if ever. Psychologists began studying this only in the last decade, partly because it mirrors the two core features of physical hoarding: collecting things and struggling to let them go.

In 2019, Nick Neave and colleagues at Northumbria University in the UK published the Digital Hoarding Questionnaire, a 10-item scale tested on more than 600 working adults. It measures two linked tendencies. Accumulating is the practical side: keeping things because they might be useful one day, and losing track of how much you have. Difficulty deleting is the emotional side: feeling uneasy after you delete, or feeling that certain files are part of you. Emails were the most hoarded items in those samples, and the top reasons for keeping them were that they might be useful later, might contain important information, or could serve as evidence.

There's more than one way to be a keeper. Interviewing 45 adults, George Sweeten and colleagues found themes familiar from physical hoarding: over-accumulation, trouble deleting, and anxiety about both. A 2018 University of British Columbia study of 23 people described a spectrum from hoarding to minimalism. Hoarding cost nothing upfront but caused frustration later, when people lost track of what they had and where. Minimalism took steady effort, and one person could keep every photo and almost no texts. A 2020 study of high scorers at work told apart organized collectors, accidental hoarders, people keeping files because their job required it, and anxious keepers. A 2021 Carnegie Mellon study found people keep browser tabs open as reminders, worried that anything out of sight is gone for good.

Digital hoarding isn't a diagnosis. Hoarding disorder, its own diagnosis in the DSM-5 since 2013, is about physical possessions: persistent difficulty parting with them, clutter that stops rooms from being used, and real distress or impairment. Having 30,000 photos doesn't put you there. Digital saving usually causes quieter problems: you can't find things, your phone slows down, storage fills up at the worst moment, and old screenshots of IDs or chats become a privacy risk if an account is hacked.

If you want a lighter phone, skip the giant clean-out. Small, regular sweeps are easier to keep up: favorite the best five photos from each event, delete used screenshots while you wait for the bus, close tabs you haven't touched in a week, and use one thing from your saved folder before saving another. Back up anything precious first, and ask friends before clearing a shared album.

How this quiz works

There are 12 questions about everyday saving moments: recipes, group chats, tabs, trip photos, notes to self and new phones. Each question has five answers, one for each saving style, shown in random order. Your pick gives 2 points to its style. Five answers honestly fit two styles, like bookmarking every tab into a "Must read" folder, so they also give 1 point to a second style, and each style receives exactly one of these. Every style can reach the same maximum of 24 points. The style with the most points is your result (a tie goes to whichever tied style you picked most recently), and the bars show your full mix. The five styles are our own grouping, inspired by the research above. They aren't a validated clinical scale, and the quiz doesn't measure how much you hoard.

All 5 results

• Camera-Roll Archivist

  Every photo is a moment, and moments don't go in the trash.

  You save because of feelings. Photos, videos, voice messages and old chats are how you hold on to people and moments, so deleting one can feel like erasing a bit of the memory. Researchers call this side of digital hoarding difficulty deleting. It's the emotional factor in the Digital Hoarding Questionnaire, where some files feel like part of you. In interviews, people with this style say they keep photos so they won't forget, and many also say the pile has become hard to keep on top of. One participant in a 2018 study loved her 20,000 photos and still found sorting them overwhelming. That's the catch for your type: the more you keep, the harder it gets to find the moments you're keeping them for.

• Screenshot Collector

  If it might matter later, it gets a screenshot now.

  You save for practical reasons: in case you need it, in case it disappears, in case someone says "I never said that." Schedules, booking codes, addresses, chats, recipes and receipts all get a screenshot, because a screenshot stays put even when the original is edited or deleted. That lines up with the top reasons people gave researchers for keeping old emails: it might be useful later, it might hold important information, and it might serve as evidence. In the Digital Hoarding Questionnaire, this practical side is called accumulating, a low-effort habit of keeping things just in case. No single screenshot is the problem. It's that 4,000 of them in one album turn quick proof into a slow search, and the one you need is always under the other 3,999.

• Tab Hoarder

  If you close it, it's gone. So nothing gets closed.

  You keep things open because open means "not finished yet." Tabs, half-read articles, drafts and unread messages are your to-do list and your memory, laid out where you can see them. A 2021 Carnegie Mellon study of browser tabs found exactly this: people keep tabs open as reminders and as a kind of outside memory, and many worry that anything moved out of sight is gone for good. Lots of them felt overwhelmed by their own tabs and still couldn't close them. Your style is less about collecting and more about unfinished business. It works while the list is short. At 47 tabs, the reminders stop reminding you of anything, your phone slows down, and the one page you need hides behind the other 46.

• Save-for-Later Curator

  You collect the good stuff. Coming back to it is a job for future you.

  You save for your future self. Reels, posts, articles, playlists, shops and café lists go into folders for the person who will someday cook more, travel more, work out more and finally redo their room. Saving feels good on its own, like a small promise and a bit of taste-building, so the folders fill up fast. Coming back is the hard part, because there's always something new to save. Researchers who interviewed people about their digital stuff found that what we keep helps us build a sense of who we are, and that piling things up costs nothing at first. The cost shows up later, when the collection is too big to use. Your folders are full of good finds. They just work better as a shortlist than as an archive.

• Clean-Slate Minimalist

  If you don't need it, it goes. A clean screen feels like a clear head.

  You keep a little and delete a lot. Photos get trimmed to the best few, screenshots go once they've done their job, group chats get left when the event ends, and tabs close as you go. A lighter phone feels calm and in control to you. Researchers place this at the minimalism end of a spectrum that runs to hoarding, and they found it has its own costs. Minimalism takes steady effort, while hoarding only costs effort once problems show up. Some minimalists described their tidying as a way to stay in control of their data and their life. The other risk is simple: one quick swipe can delete the only copy of something, like the group photo your friend never saved.

Frequently asked questions

Is digital hoarding a mental disorder?

No. Digital hoarding isn't a medical diagnosis. Hoarding disorder is, but it's defined by physical clutter that makes living spaces hard to use, plus significant distress or trouble functioning. Researchers study digital hoarding because it shares two features with it, accumulating and difficulty discarding, but having lots of photos is ordinary. If saving or deleting things causes you real distress or gets in the way of daily life, talk to a doctor or counselor.

Why is it so hard to delete photos?

Photos hold memories, so deleting one can feel like deleting the moment. In the Digital Hoarding Questionnaire research, this emotional pull, called difficulty deleting, showed up as its own factor, separate from simply piling things up. Effort plays a part too: picking the best of 40 near-identical shots takes work, while keeping all of them costs nothing today. Favoriting a few keepers per event is much easier than judging every photo.

How many photos or tabs is too many?

There's no magic number. Thirty thousand photos is fine if you can find what you want and your phone keeps up. Researchers look at costs instead of counts: losing track of what you have, not finding things when you need them, storage warnings, slow devices, and more to leak if an account is hacked. If those keep happening, it's a good time for small, regular clean-ups.

How can I clean up my phone without losing anything important?

Back up first, then start small: one album, one folder or one chat a day. Use your phone's duplicate finder for exact copies, favorite the photos you love before sorting the rest, and copy info you check often into one note. Tabs you haven't opened in a week can go, since your history keeps them. Leave the recently deleted folder alone for a while as a safety net.

Can my saving style change?

Yes. In the University of British Columbia interviews, people didn't fit neatly into one box. Some kept every photo and almost no texts, and limits like a small phone or a tight budget pushed some toward minimalism. Your mix bars show your runner-up styles, and a new phone, a new school year or a single storage-full warning can shift your result.

Sources and further reading

1. Neave, N., Briggs, P., McKellar, K., & Sillence, E. (2019). Digital hoarding behaviours: Measurement and evaluation. Computers in Human Behavior, 96, 72–77.
2. Sweeten, G., Sillence, E., & Neave, N. (2018). Digital hoarding behaviours: Underlying motivations and potential negative consequences. Computers in Human Behavior, 85, 54–60.
3. Vitale, F., Janzen, I., & McGrenere, J. (2018). Hoarding and Minimalism: Tendencies in Digital Data Preservation. Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM.
4. McKellar, K., Sillence, E., Neave, N., & Briggs, P. (2020). There Is More Than One Type of Hoarder: Collecting, Managing and Hoarding Digital Data in the Workplace. Interacting with Computers, 32(3), 209–220.
5. Chang, J. C., Hahn, N., Kim, Y., Coupland, J., Breneisen, B., Kim, H. S., Hwong, J., & Kittur, A. (2021). When the Tab Comes Due: Challenges in the Cost Structure of Browser Tab Usage. Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM.
6. American Psychiatric Association. What Is Hoarding Disorder? Psychiatry.org (reviewed 2024).

This quiz is about everyday saving habits and is meant for fun and reflection. It isn't a diagnosis of hoarding disorder or anything else; if saving or deleting things, digital or physical, causes you real distress or gets in the way of daily life, talk to a doctor or mental health professional.