How do you organise your folders?

[Crimea River]

So, on my computer, I save just about anything and everything I like that I find on the computer. I am a packrat with just about anything. My computer is a disorganised mess. I have everything that I need organised in a folder called "Ptah." As for the other stuff, I move it into a folder when it clutters up my desktop, which is then put into another folder. These folders get random, sometimes funny names. I'll name some that I have on my computer right now.

Damar, Data, Ferengi, Spockroaches, Andalite, hawt, Aliens, Andalites, Aug, Bajoran, Blah, Blue Moon, Cardassia, Chocolate Rain, Drake, Forlin, Garak, Hawt, Indar, Klingon Opera, Muggy, Odo, Phantoms, Skrit Na, Taxxon, Tick Tock, Unemite, Wormhole

When I organise things into the right sized folders so I can burn them all to CDs, I name the folder they're in after something to do with fire, and put it into a folder called "Fire Truck."

That's my crazy ways. What are your crazy (or not-so-crazy) ways?

 

[RoJoHen]

Um, I put my pictures into a folder called "Pictures."

Otherwise, I don't have a whole lot on here.

 

[Kelthaz]

Pretty simple really.

Pictures go in a folder called pictures.
School files go in a folder called school, with each class a separate folder.
Games go in a folder called games.
Videos go in a folder called videos.

You can see where I'm going with this. Just make a few main folders on your desktop and then sub-folders in those main folders. Perhaps your Videos folder could have five sub-folders for different types of video files.

 

[Teelie]

That's a bit too OCD for me. At best I sort them into a broad catagory like entertainment, memes, technical, etc. Some of them I do break down into more specific folders but I don't usually break them down quite that specifically.

 

[Skywalker]

If they're pictures from a certain thing, like Star Trek or Star Wars, I have separate folders for those. If they're just random pictures I don't put them anyplace specific.

 

[Amaris]

I have general categories that break down into subcategories and into individual file folders.

For example, suppose I have a picture of my friend's birthday party and I want to store it away. It would follow this path:

My Documents > Photos > Events > Birthdays > (My Friend) > Date

If I was putting worksheets away, like my course syllabus, it would follow this path:

My Documents > Work & School > School > University of Phoenix > Course Syllabus > GEN/105

If you folks ever look at my screencaps, you'll always see three icons:

In Windows:
My Computer
My Documents
My Network

On my Mac:
John's iMac

I'm very organized.


J.

 

[Hoser]

Everything goes on my desktop. If I'm feeling anal retentive or bored, I organize them. If not, I select them all and throw them into a New Folder (?), and shove than in the New Folder.

If the computer gets full, I look in there, or I look in Staples for a terabyte. :/

I should say, though, that pics auto go from my camera to the My Pictures folder, and I have no idea what iTunes did with my extremely organized music directory system, but I know it's in there somewhere because Mediamonkey found it.

 

[Amaris]

Everything goes on my desktop. If I'm feeling anal retentive or bored, I organize them. If not, I select them all and throw them into a New Folder (?), and shove than in the New Folder.

If the computer gets full, I look in there, or I look in Staples for a terabyte. :/

I should say, though, that pics auto go from my camera to the My Pictures folder, and I have no idea what iTunes did with my extremely organized music directory system, but I know it's in there somewhere because Mediamonkey found it.

So if I saw your desktop I'd probably start eye twitching, as I am terribly OCD.

I remember working on a client's computer once, who had 300 folders on his desktop, all of them named New Folder (1), New Folder (2) and so on. It just about drove me mad, because I so very badly wanted to re-organize them.

Oh, and MediaMonkey's great. Windows Media Player is very finicky when it comes to finding music on your HDD, MediaMonkey will find it right away.

J.

 

[DiSiLLUSiON]

I have a process similar to Hoser's:

I love a clean desktop. But it still is the most accessible place to dump stuff. So I usually put miscellaneous stuff on my desktop. Until it gets full, and it's all dumped in a folder called "stuff". Then, when the desktop is full again, all the files + the folder called "stuff" is dumped in another folder called "stuff". Then, when the desktop is full again, the process is repeated.

I now have close to 900.000 files to look through and organize. And I'm not looking forward to that.

Now, when you're talking about work (like designing and creating websites), I'm super organized, perhaps even too much so.

 

[jamestyler]

Most of my files are on my desktop. Mostly pictures, graphics etc. Everything I download gets dumped into individual files under 'Storage', music and personal photos later get filed into the usual folders when I can be bothered...

...work stuff goes into 'Workbook' or the oddly named 'Bodyshape' - which was initially a folder to keep files on my weight loss - 'Iconic' holds wallpaper and custom icon files, I have a seperate folder for wrestling work there, another for all my writing projects and one for pics of my daughter.

It's all neat and orginised. As long as I never open 'Storage' which is a jumble of crap I havent filed for months.

 

[Zulu Romeo]

The Desktop is one of two dumping grounds for downloaded stuff - the other being a download folder I've named Download Central (a name which has stuck).

Usually the desktop is a temporary place for odd programs with non-standard installations (i.e. things that don't go into Program Files) in their own folder on the Desktop, which are then usually deleted, but some such odd programs (of which I am fond) stay there longer than others. I also use the desktop as a temporary saving place for some files I'm working on. I also, where possible, keep shortcuts to regularly used folders and files on the desktop, such as my music, to save clutter.

Download Central remains the main waiting area until the files are relocated to their final resting places, and all sorts of things are to be found in there - downloaded programs, music, video, documents, pictures, etc.

If I have a lot of things that share a common theme in my Documents or Pictures or Music folders, e.g. podcasts, photo-manips, specific work files, then I put them into an appropriate subfolder at the earliest opportunity. Things are, to a certain extent, kept in a good order. However, I think it needs a good spring clean at times, especially as duplicates do crop up.

 

[TheGodBen]

I'm very organised, so everything I decide to keep gets stored away in the correct sub-folder in my user directory. For example, my CV is a Word document so it is stored like this:

Ben > My Documents > My Word > CV

My desktop is almost always clear, I only use that as a temporary workspace and normally try to clear it at the end of each session. I'm using the Windows 7 RC so all the common programs I need are pinned to the taskbar, and I've set up a toolbar folder-tree on my taskbar as well. So, if I decided I wanted to listen to Dire Straits' Money for Nothing, I'd just do this:

It's a real time-saver, I can't believe I didn't figure it out until 6 months ago.

 

[Braindeer]

I'm a photographer so I have to keep all my picture folders nice and neat. I organise them by date in the format Year-Month-Day. Everything else is a mess!

 

[Jono]

My stuff is split over a folder on the desktop (a habit from when I shared a computer with no password) and My Docs given Windows loves to make you save stuff there. My desktop only has the bin, my folder and a few game shortcuts. I don't like to have more then a half dozen icons on the desktop.

 

[trekkiedane]

I have a folder in Documents named "Aktuelt" (~newsworthy) simply because of the A -which makes it the topmost folder in Documents) EVERYTHING goes in there.

Every now and then (when the folder gets too big to rummage through) I move most of the content into a folder named like this: "Old Stuff [date] - [keywords]". Photographs go into a "Pictures" folder and audio and video go into several "AV" folders on more-or-less external HDDs.

I do however name stuff in such a way that I can find it with the search function!

I only wish for a search function that works in RL! -because I use a similar way to 'organise' my non-digital stuff


Oh, and NOTHING goes on the desktop! -I hate having that cluttered; I don't ever show icons on the desktop!

 

[Braindeer]

Oh, and NOTHING goes on the desktop! -I hate having that cluttered; I don't ever show icons on the desktop!

You'd have a fit if you saw my mum's computer - she likes to have EVERYTHING on the desktop so she knows where it is. The whole desktop is just icons as far as the eye can see!

 

[backstept]

everything goes in My Documents
my artwork, digipix, models, all have their own folders
downloads go into a folder called Installers and get moved if they actually belong elsewhere
I have too much crap that I need to sort out, but NONE of it is on my desktop
I use samurize for clock and disk drive usage and to track my send/receive traffic (in kilobytes,megabytes, gigabytes etc) and rocketdock for all my program launching needs

 

[Omnius]

I'm a photographer so I have to keep all my picture folders nice and neat. I organise them by date in the format Year-Month-Day. Everything else is a mess!

Same for me! ISO rules!

My music collection is sorted by genre (basicly classical, soundtracks & other music). After that, classical music & soundtracks then on album, and the rest of the music on artist, album.

 

[Jadzia]

I use a fusion of several methods.

Most stuff gets saved to desktop. While files are being used they generally remain there.

When the desktop is looking full, then I spend a few minutes sorting files into more permanent homes.

My root folders are:

Music -- obvious. Mostly stuff I've made myself.
Videos -- obvious. Random downloads and some video recordings. A lot of rubbish that is consuming most of my hard disk space.
Pictures -- obvious. Some internal organisation.
Software -- where I save freeware installation packages that have proven to be useful and I want to keep. This has good internal organisation.
Personal -- an archive of my past computer work, for it's sentimental value.
Games -- where I install games to. A subfolder contains shortcuts to them.
Vault -- this contains articles/webpages I've saved that are informative. This reference material. Loosely organised by subject
Studio -- this is a working folder where files go for editing, or if it is in the stages of being edited. It is frequently purged.
Development -- this is where my current software projects reside until they are completed. Completed projects get archived in the software folder.
Temp -- shortcut to the temp folder. Stuff that doesn't fit anywhere else gets dragged here. It is mostly rubbish that eventually gets deleted.

All of these folders have desktop shortcuts along the top right of my screen except for games which links to the shortcuts subfolder. Top left of my screen are my drive icons.

Down the left side of my screen are shortcuts for utilities, system related tools, web browsers, pdf viewer, winrar, image viewer, etc. Down the right side of my screen are my most used application icons. About 1/3 of my screen are these permanent shortcuts, and up to 1/3 can be the temporarily saved files.

I hardly ever use the start menu.

 

[Cakes488]

Um, I put my pictures into a folder called "Pictures."

Otherwise, I don't have a whole lot on here.

Word. The key to organizing your folders...is to not. Take me for example...maybe that's a bad idea...but anyway..at work I only file once a year...and that time is now. But why do it now when I've discovered posting on TrekBBS? As long as I can find everything I see no purpose to the actual act of filing. When I file I feel defiled. (sorry)...