I use NVAlt, a fork of Notational Velocity for notes, links, and things like that. It more or less syncs with SimpleNote so I can use it on my phone too
Ask HN: How do you keep your files organized on macOS?
121–130 of 143 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do you keep your files organized on macOS?
#122I use folder hierarchies for broad strokes categorisation. Tags for denoting state - whether a file is a piece of work that needs invoicing for, for example. And I use Houdah Spot for searching.
I’m a writer who uses Markdown for everything, so I put MultiMarkdown metadata in files (client, invoice amount, etc) and that’s useful for searches and grouping (and for scripts to build invoices based on the tags and metadata)
Re: Ask HN: How do you keep your files organized on macOS?
#123While I tried DEVONthink and have even written a personal document management system myself in the past, I have come to realise that no proprietary system will last forever. So I went back to files, folders, naming conventions and a good search tool + Finder replacement. As to the conventions: * I follow the recommendations of a German Professor named Loehn [1]. Prof. Loehn recommends to name every file with three pa…
Have you investigated symlinking INBOX folder so that its real location maps to a location inside your ~/Documents/FOLDERS location so that you only have one place to worry about all files?
Re: Ask HN: How do you keep your files organized on macOS?
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do the same thing, but I just scan with Fujitsu ScanSnap and dump in a huge folder in Dropbox. They're OCR'ed and named with the date by default, and that's enough that I can basically always find what I want. That said, I rarely need anything in that folder beyond 10-20 documents like passport or birth certificate scans. To the point where I wonder if the scanning is even worth it. Why don't I just toss all that s…
“Why don't I just toss all that stuff in a big box (so roughly sorted by time) and go through it in the rare event that I need something someday?” This is basically what I do with nearly all my paper records. It's a sort of JIT filing system. “Writes” into the document store take very little time. I just dump everything into a folder for the current month. I keep a ring buffer of 12 months worth of docs. When a dirty…
Its like Amazon Glacier for your files.
Re: Ask HN: How do you keep your files organized on macOS?
#125Chronologically sorted chaos
Re: Ask HN: How do you keep your files organized on macOS?
#126Chronologically sorted chaos
And subdirectory after subdirectory of folders named "stuff".
Re: Ask HN: How do you keep your files organized on macOS?
#127Someone had previously shared johnny-decimal, but I have yet to use it to reorganize my files. https://johnnydecimal.com/
Thank you for sharing this! I have always organized my directories similar to concepts explained here but the introducing of decimals adds that extra attribute that helps with searching records in the future.
I started organizing my local files and Dropbox. I'm hoping to eventually organize my Personal and Work Google Drive as well.
Re: Ask HN: How do you keep your files organized on macOS?
#128I use an old (discontinued) app called DragThing that sits in the lower left corner of my desktop. It contains tabs for different project groups (Personal, Websites, Clients, etc). Each tab will have my most often used folders and I'll add / remove folders as needed. For keeping my desktop clean, I keep a "clean-up" folder that I can sweep everything into and clear it out as needed (every 6 months or so).
I loved DragThing. It's what the useless MacOS Dock should have been.
Re: Ask HN: How do you keep your files organized on macOS?
#129Code: each project in its own folder.
Docs: date sorted mess with a twist. In over 30 years of using a computer, I've only rarely gone back to stuff I haven't touched in months. So when I notice that old files I no longer care much about are starting to pile up, I create a folder and move applicable files into that folder for archival purposes. I've a few exceptions for important papers, like contracts and invoices.
Re: Ask HN: How do you keep your files organized on macOS?
#130I would recommend going with the zen of finder. I basically just throw everything into Dropbox, unless I am specifically trying to put a collection together (eg: "documents for meeting 2019-01-01"), and then use Finder.
Surprised nobody has mentioned case sensitivity yet (as far as I can Ctrl-F for); I have a case-sensitive disk image called ~/dev/ where all code checkouts live.
Been using autojump for a while to make terminal navigation easier