I used to have complete anarchy in my Downloads folder, but I’ve since reformed my ways and now my Downloads folder is clean and my Videos and Documents folders are complete anarchy instead.

Organizing is one thing but it’s better to reduce your brainpower-spending regardless of what you do.

On Windows? Custom iconed folders and explorer bookmarks go a long way. Better than relying on Quick Access or whatever.

On desktop Linux? Tools like fd and zoxide (z) save you as long as your directory names are consistent. Sticking to names-like-this reduces guesswork and you can skip around in seconds. (Saved me many a due date.)

On Android, consult Indiana Jones. Your files are a treasure – they’re staying hidden

I use this thing, I find it pretty useful

100% of everything is on the desktop. No borders no boundaries to divide the working class programs against themselves

It goes to the Desktop, when the Desktop is full I delete everything that looks unimportant 👍

These days, a shallow folder system. I have an electronica folder, and a Blanck Mass folder that definitely would go in there but that is full enough to stand on it’s own. Actual taxonomic organisation would take way too many clicks, but flat organisation can result in trouble finding things, and just looks like you’re a slob. (Although I’m guilty of having unsorted hoarder folders for things I only needed once, too)

There’s probably a rule of thumb for optimal fanout on each GUI folder, related to our visual processing. Hmm. I wonder if there’s a way to make the tree self-balancing as well.

I try but don’t always succeed. In my main laptop, I have all misc files in the downloads folder, photos in photos, documents(pdfs, writer, math) and videos/movies in videos.

I don’t keep anything relevant on my machine. It’s just a way to access data hosted somewhere more safe. Also files and folders are terrible ways to organize anything, even remotely like Google Drive or similar stuff. It’s Microsoft’s and Apple’s brainrot outliving the 90s. We should move forward.

Everything Everywhere All at Once

Your question made me curious, so I counted: the subdirectories in my home directory reach a maximum of 26 levels deep.

I just use Everything desktop search and let the files fall where they may.

Ideally:

• Well-organized set of frequently-used and recent files on my laptop
• Media and old documents on my NAS, synced to an external hard drive I can remove for travel
• Each device/non-backup drive/USB drive/SD card backed up to its own folder on a large external drive
• A duplicate of said drive from another manufacturer
• An archival copy of my documents and photos (encrypted on microSD ofc) that I carry with me
• Additional copy of the most important stuff on M-Discs

Reality:

• Controlled mess on my laptop
• Dumping ground of random YT videos and CD rips on my NAS
• A well-curated external drive prepared in my pandemic free time
• An external drive with somewhat periodic backups of my devices alongside every unsorted file. I worry that some file paths have grown too long
• Duplicate of the two above on one large external drive
• Another external drive with files and backups of dubious usefulness that I refuse to delete
• An outdated copy of my documents and photos on an everyday carry microSD
• A stack of unused M-Discs

I’ve struggled with digital organizing for decades. I tried tons of strategies from other people. There’s lots of good ideas, but ultimately you have to find something that works for you. I take some ideas from other systems and tweak them in ways that make sense for me.

I heavily rely on the default indexing of my OS. KDE is great, but most OSes have pretty good file searching tools. Just make sure to label files or at least folders in ways that are searchable.

Backups are super important (3 copies, 2 different types of media, 1 copy off site). I like to structure my data in a way that is easy to back up. I have a folder called “ephemeral” for stuff that I don’t care to back up so I don’t waste precious space. But i also try to have way more space than i need. I have a 4TB ssd on my main laptop and am planning on upgrading to 8TB soon. I have two different ZFS RAID3 arrays on my server where I copy data too. I started using syncthing to keep different types of media backed up between multiple computers. That way I can decide which computer is connected to which data set. Then I take regular backups of the sever to external drives and rotate those backup off site monthly.

I like to have a folder called “archive” where i put things that I want to hold on to, but will probably never need regular access too.

I also have a sensitive data folder for things that need to be on encrypted drives like financial statements, social security, passwords, ssh keys. Keeping it together helps me from forgetting it on an unencrypted drive. I had a laptop stolen once and it sucked not knowing what they may have pulled from it.

I have a media folder that contains folders for basic file types like documents, pictures, books, music, etc. The ephemeral folder has the same folder structure, but contains files that i don’t care if they disappear or get deleted. It is annoying to keep up with this though. But investing in storage space buys me time to not deal with it.

It will never be perfect so I learned how to stop worrying and love the search.

I use plex so it files have to complay with the minimum plex naming conventions:

https://support.plex.tv/articles/naming-and-organizing-your-tv-show-files/

NAS. Most things sit in downloads indefinitely, and I’ll randomly decide the folder is gross and unmanageable and put things into appropriate folders. Usually Documents gets the most sub-categories, with various significant life docs sorted by category and year. Pictures gets random art I made in a folder, pictures, memes and funny shit, etc also get their own folders.

Media downloads go straight to the NAS where they’re organized by Format/Category/Series/Name. As in Video/Movies/John wick/John wick 1. TV gets a season level in there.