Do you keep everything in “downloads” or have file trees 100 folders deep?
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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/
My organising system has a dual nature: it is either highly structured or a mess.
Information, such as documents, notes, spreadsheets, and images, is carefully organised into well-defined directories, no more than four or five levels deep. The destination directory is chosen at the time of download.
Anything that I expect to use more than once, even if only a few times, is dumped into a directory called GMS (Games, Movies, Software), which resides on a separate disk partition.
Everything else ends up in the Downloads directory, which is truncated every three months.
Sidebar on GMS directory
GMS originally stood for Games, Music, Software. But I stopped managing my own music since switching to Spotify and now Apple Music. I rarely watched movies on my computer back in 00s; my cable TV fulfilled those needs then.
I used to manage the contents of GMS few times a year, but I have stopped doing that now since my usage of this folder has dropped by a lot since the early 2010s.
The decreased use might be explained by my increased use of package managers, Steam and GOG, and streaming services.
However, another factor could be that I now avoid situations where I would need to download anything via my browser, unless absolutely necessary. Perhaps due to lower tolerance towards such practices or reduced patience with age.
Omg now they’re trying to profile where you keep your shit so their hackers can find your porn stash more efficiently. Don’t tell them Pike!
D: Downloads
Then the folders -
Films
TV programs
Software
- Everything inside these folders is a fucking car crash
Downloads folder is a free-for-all; things get properly sorted when they’re moved onto the NAS - there is a seperate network drive for Multimedia (videos), Applications, Photos, etc. Each of those are then usually nested by Alphabetical folder.
Anything more than 5 dir deep is overly complex.
All movies are thrown into one folder called movies, every show is in its own folder with a season per folder. Jellyfin deals with that.
Music is stored by artist and thrown into the music folder.
Documents are sorted by year and purpose but are all in one folder called documents.
Books are in e-books, audiobooks are in audiobooks folders by author.I don’t have the energy or the patience so the *arr stack organizes everything for me automatically. Not 100 levels deep, maybe a dozen or so at most, but very clean and tidy.
And more importantly, how do you back up your important stuff?
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.
100% of everything is on the desktop. No borders no boundaries to divide the working class programs against themselves
Before even looking, I could tell you were from .ml. Stand strong, comrade!
File trees 100 folders deep but entirely in Downloads of course
Everything Everywhere All at Once
Well whenever I want to keep track of an important document, I put AAA or 000 in front of the title. And then I make several copies. And then I make multiple folders intending to organize things. And then I wind up with 30 separate docs folders yet all my documents end up in the general My Documents, Downloads, or Desktop folders instead.
Your question made me curious, so I counted: the subdirectories in my home directory reach a maximum of 26 levels deep.
You gotta up those numbers!
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
This is the one that hit home for me.
