Ask HN: Best File Naming Convention?

#1

Post by ckrusk » Tue, Jan 29, 2019, 2:54 PM UTC

I have recently taken upon the task of organizing my digital life (multiple laptops, Dropbox, external drives) to minimize some digital waste as well as making my digital storage a little more manageable. How do you name your files/directories to effectively manage them?

https://www2.staffingindustry.com/site/Editorial/Archived-Blog-Posts/Adam-Pode-s-Blog/Probably-the-best-file-naming-convention-ever? I found this page during some quick googling, but I would like to see what HN has to say about it.

Re: Ask HN: Best File Naming Convention?

#2

Post by davchana » Tue, Jan 29, 2019, 10:47 PM UTC

First some 6-8 badic folders, like Travel, Documents, Finance, Work etc. Travel could have YYYYMMDD TRIP folders, Work could have YYYY MM Company A

Re: Ask HN: Best File Naming Convention?

#3

Post by vkaku » Wed, Jan 30, 2019, 4:21 AM UTC

- I use 8.3 NAMES for my top level stuff. I keep the top level names short.

- The subsequent folders are CamelCased.

- The files are either NAME.TXT (8.3 file) or NameLongerThanExpected-Part1.txt (regular file)

Re: Ask HN: Best File Naming Convention?

#4

Post by bjourne » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 11:03 AM UTC

Short lowercase names and I avoid spaces and non-ascii chars. Even in 2019 there is still software that has trouble with that, especially if the files are accessed from both Windows and Linux.