I'm currently tidying up and throwing away a lot of old things and I have a bit of a conundrum: what do I do with all these instruction booklets? I'm overflowing with them! I'm thinking of perhaps throwing away all 2008-2019 booklets and keeping the older ones. What do you guys do with them?

Crazy as it sounds, I very much value the instruction books, so I sort them by size and stuff them into old LEGO store bags and stack them like bricks in the closet. Not sure why in this day and age, I would rather build by instruction books than computer screen any day. Since I really don't have any sort of cataloguing system it can prove to be cumbersome to find a specific book though, especially when you have hundreds of them. 

Edited February 21, 20196 yr by Johnny1360

Keep the ones from expensive sets. Chuck / recycle / reuse the small set ones.

With my kids, we made lots of LEGO themed storage boxes for their rooms. Heavy duty cardboard boxes from the supermarket, spray glue and pages from their old instructions.

Instructions are filed by themes and then broken down by set number in a filing cabinet. I keep the Lego boxes, and the numbered plastic bags that come with them. 

I file instruction books by theme and format (that is, paper size) in a cabinet.  I prefer to build sets with paper instructions, but I don't care about them enough to make sure every used set I buy online comes with the instructions.  I make sure to download digital instructions for everything, since you never know when an online resource will disappear and the files are as easy to sort in digital form as in physical form.

Edited February 21, 20196 yr by icm

I keep them, just like with my older sets.

Even if they are on the internet now, does not guarantee them to be there in 20-40 years.

I keep boxes for larger/more interesting sets, and the instructions for pretty much all of them.  If I have multiples I'll usually just keep 1 or 2 and recycle the rest.  I also prefer to build from paper instructions and the sets feel more real/complete to me with those instructions in-hand.  Though if I'm just referencing one for a quick technique or part use or something I will generally just pull up the PDF online.  Realistically, I go back to the instructions rarely enough that it wouldn't matter, but whether it be for nostalgia, future resale value (heaven forbid!), etc., I just can't seem to part with them.

I simply stack mine in a storage box until it starts getting full, then I file them by theme/category into large binders with the instructions slipped into sheet protectors (not separated or mounted, just the whole booklet slipped into the plastic sleeve).

Mostly keep them but have disposed of a lot of the smaller ones. Very large set instructions are kept even if they've been taken apart for parts and never intend to rebuild; not sure why I keep them. Stacked neatly in a closet.

I keep mine in a pile.  It is fun going through them while searching for a particular instruction booklet to rebuild a disassembled set.

I have them in boxes and then crammed into spaces that the boxes fit... 

I have been considering doing something else to organise them or something, but then I still have LEGO to sort. Maybe one day I will do something else with them, but right now it is just a horde. 

I keep them in the clear file holder, and storage in a box. Now I assembly my set are use the e-instruction. 

 

I keep all the instructions, catalogs, etc stacked in a box.

I keep them in a couple of 4 drawer office filing cabinets. I've tried organizing them a few times; I used to sort them by physical page size, then little sets vs. big sets, then I tried sorting by theme, finally I realized I was just driving myself crazy and started sorting everything by set number.  I'm not good with keeping up on my Brickset inventory so I find it helpful sometimes when I'm asking myself "Did I built this already?" about some set from years earlier to be able to go to the files and see if the instruction book is there.

When I filled my first filling cabinet I thought maybe it was time for a purge, but I decided just to buy another file instead - after half a century of collecting it's hard to let go.

If I've picked up redundant kits for whatever reason (amassing parts, more rolling stock for my trains, fleet of snow speeders, etc.), though, I don't keep multiple copies of the instructions.  I can't quite bring myself to recycle the spares, but I set them aside and give them away when the opportunity arises (LUGs, Conventions, School & Library donations, etc.)

I trash them.

Back when I lived in America I could get away with keeping the instructions and boxes. In my London house I can't keep that much so I condense the LEGO collection as much as I can. Only way to do that is through bins. 

I put them in plastic sleeves, and then file them in binders. The shelves in my LEGO room is filled with more than 50 binders (sorted by set numbers).

The boxes are flattened, bagged, and stored in the basement (hoping they stay dry)

I put mine in boxes in my closet. The boxes have multiple sleeves, and each sleeve has instructions based on a theme. I keep them just in case a set breaks. I do see a point on throwing them away though because you can always just find them, if you need them, on brickinstructions.com.

Most modern ones are on LEGO.com

I recycle them, they’re on the site after all and there’s way too much paper if I don’t

What I do with my instructions is once I am done building a LEGO Set I just put it in a box under my bed. And every once in a while look through the advertisements and use the instructions when I am trying to rebuild a LEGO Set.