Earlier quoted context omitted.
Neither do I. I find that tags are "optional" so they aren't used 100% of the time, but you are forced to place your file in a folder somewhere.
Folders are just mandatory tags
More like categories, no?
Ask HN: How do you keep your files organized on macOS?
61–70 of 143 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do you keep your files organized on macOS?
#62Having some more context would be nice, but here's some tips as a web developer. * Don't save files on the desktop. * Create a Projects or Dev folder in your home directory and make a folder for each project. (For Web development, I use Laravel Valet which automatically makes a foldername.test vhost inside ~/Dev.) * My Downloads folder is very messy. I could probably set up a job to delete files older than 6 months,…
I've been using ~/src/HOST/ACCOUNT/REPO pattern for all source code since playing with go... host could be github.com or GROUP.visualstudio.com .. account can be an account/group/project name and repo is the individual code repo. Local temp things ~/src/local/PROJECT/REPO
I have also taken to a few setup scripts that ensure tooling is installed, and checks out the repos in their respective directories.
Re: Ask HN: How do you keep your files organized on macOS?
#63Have tried all apps out there, even the "Database" ones - but it's not portable and it's an instant lock-in. Plus most of the Apps bind to folders anyway, so you'll have a lot of "junk" that you have no idea what it is. What I've found to work is this. Main root folders few and named easily. - Customers - Internal - Private - VMs All sub-folders have numbers, so they can always sort by name so they're always in the s…
I don't go that far, just let alphabetical work.. I do prefix `!` or `_` in front of a couple directories to push them to the top in my editor though.
Re: Ask HN: How do you keep your files organized on macOS?
#64Dropbox/ contains stuff that I’ll need when I’m away from home.
Downloads/ gets purged every few years of stale downloads.
Documents/ gets mission-critical stuff that needs to be backed up but does not need to be in the cloud.
Pictures/ has all my non-Photos photos, including a quarter terabyte of DSLR raw files.
Photos and iTunes put their stuff wherever they do.
I have files from 1999 in my home directory so I’m not sure I can offer any advice on tidying up :)
Re: Ask HN: How do you keep your files organized on macOS?
#65Like most other commenters I just create directories in my home directory, but looking at it just now I realize it is way out of hand. I need to clean things up.
Re: Ask HN: How do you keep your files organized on macOS?
#66Dropbox/ contains stuff that I’ll need when I’m away from home. Downloads/ gets purged every few years of stale downloads. Documents/ gets mission-critical stuff that needs to be backed up but does not need to be in the cloud. Pictures/ has all my non-Photos photos, including a quarter terabyte of DSLR raw files. Photos and iTunes put their stuff wherever they do. I have files from 1999 in my home directory so I’m no…
> Downloads/ gets purged every few years of stale downloads.
Do you have an automated way of doing this? I keep the Downloads/ finder tab open at all times so I periodically clean up.
Re: Ask HN: How do you keep your files organized on macOS?
#67 ~/Code/
L python/
L project1/
L ...
L dotnet/
L web/
L work/
L ...
~/Documents/
L school/
L Spring2019/
L ...
L personal/
L work/
~/Documents/ is backed up to iCloud so I can access them anywhere. (Tip: Any directory you don't want to be backed up can be suffixed with ".nosync" e.g. SecretStuff.noSync).
This all started after getting into Go, which mandates a central directory under which all Go code is stored. [1] nesting scope also helps namespace resources.
Re: Ask HN: How do you keep your files organized on macOS?
#68I'm getting closer and closer to the "just dump it all in a huge bucket and search if you need" strategy. Like many here, I've tried to keep things semi-organized but it's a constant fight against entropy. And filing tens of thousands of emails and files every year just so I can access the 1% that I might need later seems dumb. Why not just search? It might take 10x as long to find via search as it would if it was nicely filed, but if you only need 1% of the files in the long run, you still come out 10x ahead.
Years ago I stopped filing my physical paperwork and instead just scanning with the Fujitsu ScanSnap, which creates searchable PDFs. It's been amazing. I almost never need any of that stuff, but it's there if I do. In fact, given how useless all that stuff is turning out to be, I'm tempted to even stop scanning and just put in a big box and forget about it. If I need it someday, I can dig through the box and find it. Now that I have several years worth of files clogging my Downloads folder, it might be time to just take the same approach there.
Re: Ask HN: How do you keep your files organized on macOS?
#69Everything personal is in ./Dropbox and everything work related is in ./Google Drive
How my work and personal files are organised was a source of frustration and annoyance for _years_, I'd be constantly fighting a sisyphean battle of organising the ever growing chaos; then I had a realisation, hierarchical folders/files will _never_ map to my mental model and there's no perfect system. I've learned to live with the chaos.
Re: Ask HN: How do you keep your files organized on macOS?
#70Dropbox/ contains stuff that I’ll need when I’m away from home. Downloads/ gets purged every few years of stale downloads. Documents/ gets mission-critical stuff that needs to be backed up but does not need to be in the cloud. Pictures/ has all my non-Photos photos, including a quarter terabyte of DSLR raw files. Photos and iTunes put their stuff wherever they do. I have files from 1999 in my home directory so I’m no…
> Downloads/ gets purged every few years of stale downloads. Do you have an automated way of doing this? I keep the Downloads/ finder tab open at all times so I periodically clean up.
Hazel, if you want a GUI tool for that sort of thing.