Organize your computer files

Difficulty: Easy – no experience required
Time Requirement: approx. 30 minutes, depending on how much data you have
Applicable OS: Any; this article leans toward Windows

My father’s computer is a cluttered mess of files and programs randomly strewn across his file system. Since I’m the de facto in-house tech support for my family, I’m the one who navigates it when he gets angry that he can’t find something. A little bit of planning and organization would make it easier for him to find his files and save me a headache in the process. Two birds with one stone, right?

But before I begin spouting “best ways,” an introduction to file systems seems appropriate. Your file system is the figurative tree of files and programs that are saved to your disk. You have the root, which is your drive. Windows users will be familiar with C:\ representing root. All of the folders are branches of the tree, and your files are the leaves.

Every time you do something, you are at a specific “location” on your hard disk. When you save a file to your hard disk, you probably use a graphical file browser like Explorer, Finder or Files (for Windows, Mac and Mint, respectively) to put it somewhere. That’s a visual representation of your file system. You can point and click and open files through your file browser. (Sounds like “Web browser,” right? It’s essentially the same thing!)

The question becomes, “What is the best way to organize my computer files?” The answer will differ between each user because in the final analysis, who you are and what you do will determine the best system for you.

My father’s computer is old. It’s a Dell Inspiron 5100 laptop from 2003. It’s a fossil. It can’t do much in the way of contemporary computing because it simply doesn’t have the power for it. He uses it primarily for browsing the Web and occasional word processing and spreadsheet making. His projects are few and far in between, and often self-initiated.

For someone like him, I would recommend an organization structure divided into years, and then by project. Each project’s main directory — that’s a “folder” in Windows and Mac jargon — should begin with the number of the month it started in. A good example of a main directory name for a project about organizing my brother’s soccer team information would be “7_u8villaSoccer”: “7” for July and “u8villaSoccer” for my brother’s U-8 soccer team.

He rarely downloads things, so his Downloads folder can stay unorganized — except that it should be in reverse-chronological order instead of the Windows default of alphabetical. He can do that by clicking on the Date Modified heading in Explorer. (That would be Finder on an Apple computer.)

Linux users who have a GUI probably have something similar (like “Files,” depending on their build), and for the truly antiquated, “ls -lt” can do it for you (though if you’re reading this, you probably already knew that).

Unlike my father, however, I pretty much live my life on my computer. I have everything: an array of programs, documents, downloaded files, images, music — the whole ten yards. I’m also a student, a copy editor, a convention organizer and a fledgling radio show producer. The flow of my files is too immense to divide chronologically. What good is a monthly system, or even a weekly system, when I save so many files every day?

Because I’m task-oriented, my files are organized by category. PR homework? Goes in the PR folder which is inside the “1Fourth-year” folder (the ‘1’ in front puts it at the top of the alphabetical list) which is in the Documents folder. Cat picture? Goes in Pictures\Catz.

If you’re like me, you need an organizational scheme like this. But they don’t appear overnight. If you’ve had your computer for a while and you’re still scrolling through an unorganized list of files — or worse, searching your entire disk because you’ve misplaced yet another one — try my method:

Step 1: look at each file and determine what category it should be filed under. Put it in that directory, or if one doesn’t already exist, make one.

Step 2: now take each category folder and weigh its importance. Immediate projects and long-term important things (like classwork and cat pictures) get 1s in front of their names. This puts them right at the top of your list every single time. Prefix a lowercase Z on anything that you want at the very end of the list.

Step 3: if you have leftover single files that don’t fit in any category or if the leftovers aren’t important enough for directories, then those are the ones that stay in <Username>\Documents.

To recap, here are the settings to remember:

• put 1s in front of file and directory names to move them to the top of the list
• put lowercase Zs in front of names to move them to the bottom of the list
• put a 6-digit date code in front of names to list them chronologically in an alphabetical structure, but only in subfolders (folders within folders), which are used for one specific thing
• click column headers in file browsers to organize the list. This is also useful for finding a certain type of file (just click the “Type” column header).

In addition to my examples, there’s a whole bunch of ways you can choose to organize your files. If you right-click the header bar (where it says “Name” and “Modified Date” and “Type,” et. al.), you’ll bring up a menu that has a few customizations, and a rather liberating “More…” option at the bottom. (Disclaimer: I don’t know if it’s possible to do this on a Mac.)

Once you know what works for you, it only takes a cup of coffee to get it done.