How do you organize your computer files?
 

As she's gotten clunky and messy, I think it's about time to clean out and reorganize Anna Logical. So I thought I'd see how you guys organize your stuff.

Traditionally I keep my music and movies on a second hard drive. The rest of my stuff is segregated into folders named for function - Homework, Utilities, Art, Photos, Downloads, etc. Pretty boring.

Mostly it's all catagorized in My Documents on one drive.
One mind, one place.

I don't do music or video downloads that much,
and what I do, I don't keep for the most part.

Archive, Web, Business, Tech, Photos, Download, Games, etc.

Nothing is anywhere else, my desktop has nothing on it.
Wastebasket is usually emptied immediately.

I don't like clutter in my system.

Now if I can just get myself to organize my homeoffice the same way. ;)

my "My Documents" folder is another disk, (saves me time when formatting and whatnot)

I have a few folders that begin with underscores so that they are always on top of everything, so when things get messy, i always have those ones on top.

_Notes
_Other Stuff
_Saved Word Docs
_School Related
_html

that is essentially the way things are kept, even on my storage drives i use the same principal (even on my webserver now that i think about it)

i'm really compulsive about this kind of stuff, so maybe my methods are a bit silly.

all programs, great and small, go in the program files folder. random rubbish i download goes in a simple floder marked dl on my desktop. all media goes into my kazaalite shared folder. my desktop consists of my computer, my network, the dl folder, the shared files folder, my recycle bin, and a few random txt files of notes for one purpose or another. as for regularly used programs, eveyrthing has an icon on my taskbar, i barely ever use my start button. for four gigs of space, that works out pretty well.

main disk:
os,
stupid little proggies I install but don't always need
temporary files I download
second disk:
My documents

third disk:
big programs I regularly need or use like office, photoshop, etc.

fourth disk:
movies or series I have yet to see

saves me a ton of time when formatting, just clean the C and reinstall OS, then while using, I will reinstall small proggies again when I need them and I can automatically access all important files anyway

We keep everything on the server. Things are filed away according to who saved them in the first place. I have a drive, Hubby has a drive. I just simply keep things organized according to function. Pics (fun pics, Laura pics, etc.) work (contracts, scheduling) and all that sort of thing. I break things down more specifically so I have directories in directories inside more but then I can just follow the trail of names and don't have a long list of files to search through.

files in files in files i like to keep them organized by groups

Organize?

heh, I have 5 people using 1 computer in my house, organization is impossible.

My desktop is cluttered. I keep all things that I use on my desktop as shortcuts. School programs on one side, internet shortcuts in the middle, various programs on the other side. not much room left, and I use all of it. Things I dont use I delete after a week of non-use.

Here's my setup:

c: - System
d: - My Documents (images, docs, projects, etc)
e: - CD-ROM (for some strange reason)
f: - My CD Collection Ripped
g: - Downloads
h: - System Paging Files

40GB hdd:
all 10gb partitions

d)10gb music
e)6gb vids,rest games
f)2gb pics,rest anime+games
c)winxp,appz,games,more music, various downloads

Umm I try to organize but since I program stuff most of my programs i make end up on the desktop folder. So pretty much everythings on the desktop folder all messy. Should try to clean it one day but then it'll just get messy again.

By size.

My stuff is fairly organized, Mainly I look on the way things look, No one can use my computer except me becuase of all the customization, I have no desktop items at all, just a fucking amazing picture of this girl I am in love with, and everything is in a start menu thing, its windows overlayed with three or four different shell programs, and I use tools for each one, the start menu box is invisible, and the program icons pop up in a line at the top of the screen, so everything is axcessed just from this destop picture, I love it

I basically have my desktop, and then a folder on my desktop called desktop 2. It's kind of like a misc folder.

c: 60gb - operating system and installed applications
d: 120gb - games and files that I work with
e: 120gb - mp3s
f: 120gb - movies, porn, books, programs, archives
g: 120gb - backups, downloads, rips

I like to keep my desktop clean, so every once in a while, if it has collected enough crap, I just dump it all into a folder somewhere, like "Work in Progress" or "School\<Course Name>"

c:\ - Windows XP and its related bloat (10gb)
d:\ - Applications (20.0gb)
e:\ - Games and storage of CD images (40.0gb)
f:\ - Movies, music, pics, backups (45.0gb)

because i'm psychotically anal about certain things, my My Documents folder is catergorized by High School vs. College and then by class and then category of assignment.

Everything else is just "Music" or "Pictures," nothing special.

personally i use good old heapsort on the desktop

/Applications - Duh
~/Documents
~/Movies
~/Music
~/Pictures
~/Sites
~/Development
~/Desktop

it's not really organized. it's chaotic like my head.

I keep everything on 1 80 gb disk. God knows when my pc crashes I'm fucked, But I have a folder with my name then subfolders with what it contains. All my programs go in the Program Folder.

I need to set my next computer up like Halx's. My setup is all my files in My documents, then I have a shitload of subfolders.
The Main subfolders are Pictures, Music, Videos, Documents.
Documents has folders for school, tax forms, and other documents.
Videos is all porn, subfolders are done by name of female pornstar.
Music is subdivided by artist, then album.
Pictures is divided by Porn, Racing, and Other. The Porn folder is subdivided into Girl Pics (1 girl by herself), lesbian, and XXX. These folders are then divided by the name of the girl

Halx has 640 gb. Is that right. Amazing. I'm impressed. I only have 40 and thought 40 more would be way more than enough. I even download alot from Kazaa, I usually burn alot of disks with downloaded stuff. I keep all my porn and personal stuff in a file with My name on the c: drive. MP3S in a file on my desktop. Pictures in the my pictures file. My wife has a file with her name in MY documents so she can find it. All programs in the program file. I do not use very many desktop or task bar icons.

All my music is in my iTunes folder, my applications in /Applications, my downloads in ~/downloads, documents in ~/documents etc.
I clone my machine weekly to a 120gb HDD in a desktop (this is a laptop), and I have a script set up so it connects to a file server, and puts my documents on it nightly.

I made partitions on my HD. First one Windows installation, second one Multimedia files, third one Programs and last one Downloads and fileshare.

I have a physical drive for my downloads, and a physical drive for my docs, then another physical drive partitioned into separate operating systems and virtual machine OSs.

The downloads drive is actually PGP-encrypted with my 4096bit key, so its pretty easy to tell Im slightly paranoid about my security...

mydocs is a jumble.. the only thing organized in there is my porn :P

all my stuff is on one organized entirely by genre and date

I'm a mix.
 

This peecee has a 36gb disk split 10/25. The biggest thing on my C: drive is a folder of incoming stuff that I haven't gotten around to sorting out/archiving/whatever. G: (I didn't get around to adding the 2nd partition until after setting up cd flashreader and firewire disk) is the usual iso's, material, etc and a couple largish installed apps. G: is running out of space and I need to just dump it onto a DAT tape. Eventually I'll get around to it. The firewire disk's contents are neatly organized by file type.

The main Mac in the house has 4 hard disks on it which, all of which are bootable with various archaic OS versions. They were all previously the only disks in other respective machines so they all have some apps some data some whatever...the actual important data on that machine is religiously copied to every available disk whenever it's updated.

Every other machine here is ephemeral (I move through hardware frighteningly) and usually contains little more than an OS load.

have 400 GB between my server and a total of four systems. Going to be needing at least another 120 GB very soon as audio work eats up a lot of space when you archive everything in a proper lossless format - most of my converted LP/tape collection is in the ape (older stuff) or flac (switched some months back) format.
My puny 110 GB on that PIII server is getting overwhelmed all too quickly as new archived material is added on a mostly daily basis as I complete transferring LPs.

rough guess on the number of partitions on the three windows systems is at least 15 if not more

One unpartitioned 40gig HD:

My Documents: Random stuff, funny pics, pretty much where anything that doesn't fit anywhere else goes here.
Utils: Apps I use fairly often (mirc, kazaa, photoshop etc)
Program Files: Apps that I don't use so much I guess... it's hard to describe how I decide what goes in utils in what goes in program files. I don't even really know why I do it that way. Oh well. Oh and stuff like codecs goes here too.
Games: Self-explanatory.
Oldgames: Self Explanatory again.
Stuff: All the stuff I share on Kazaa, DC++ and at LANs, and stuff like install files and patches, all in one place so they're easy to find and back up if I have to reformat. Divided into Cracks, Drivers, Gaming AVIs, Install Files, ISOs, Movies & TV, MP3s, Music Videos and Patches. I arrange my MP3s and music vids in directories by artist, with file names just the name of the song.

Everything is broken down into two different folders:

Porn
Everthing Else

i tend to download stuff to my desktop then why my desktop is too cluttered i make a folder (newfolder_682) and stick the stuff in there.. then i proceed to clutter my desktop again and restart this process... however i try to keep most of my music in one spot.. tho its in like 4now... i just format if its a horrible mess.. oh wait it is... you can always just do a search for what you need anyways... right?

Shortcuts to games on front.. Stuff Folder.. which holds ALL of my music and then another misc folders(s) as well. There are a few other folders on my Desktop, those being what I access most. Program files holds all of my... program files.

Basically its that much. I have my game shortcuts and then my Stuff Folder, and then my program files, blah blah blah. Now my "Stuff" folder is highly organized. A folder for everything. As for my music, If I have at least 4 songs of a band then it gets its own folder. If not, it goes in the Misc Music folder, where as the Misc folder is for crazy junk that i don't have a ton of yet.

Very clean and organized though, unlike my room.. :D

And yes, Jam's desktop is VERY messy... in fact its kind of sad.. haha

Other than games and OS evrything else is stored in My Documents in the following folders and sub-folder:
* Pics ---> Racing (about 10 subfolders fo different catergories and my photography), My Snaps (subfolder for different subjects), Other (funny stuff & some porn)
* Music (subfolder for each artist then for album)
* Vids ---> Movies, Racing Clips, Other
* School (subfolder for each subject, with further subfolders for most)
* Writing (subfolder for each general topic often with subfolders for notes etc.)
* Misc ---> flash games, jokes, archives, web design

Mines pretty haphazard. I have one hard drive for software installs, one for games and some media, and another for media and backups. Within those, it is all pretty haphazard. I have one directory for games, and I always download things from the web to one folder, but other than that, anything goes. I really should get better about it, but I dont have any problems finding things.

they're all over the place.. i got movies on 3 drives.. and i only got 4 in the system.