How To

How to Organize Directories on Your Computer

Contributor
By eHow Contributing Writer
(18 Ratings)

Organize the folders, also called directories, on your computer to keep all your programs and documents where you can easily find them.

Difficulty: Easy
Instructions

Things You'll Need:

  • Microsoft Windows
  1. Step 1

    Use the Windows-created My Documents folder as the "root," or base level, folder for your documents, or create a new folder with a different name for the root file folder. (You can't change the name of the My Documents folder.)

  2. Step 2

    Create folders within the My Documents folder for the various categories of documents you work on: for example, photographs, letters, databases, Web pages and so on.

  3. Step 3

    Create subfolders within the category folders, going as many levels deep as you need. For example, in the Photographs folder, you might have a folder for each of your children, with subfolders for each year.

  4. Step 4

    When you save documents, make sure to change the save location so they are filed in the appropriate folder.

  5. Step 5

    Change your backup program to back up the My Documents folder and all its subfolders, rather than tracking down personal files all over your hard disk.

  6. Step 6

    Make a directory on your root drive called Web Downloads for Internet downloading.

  7. Step 7

    Change the default save location on your Web browser to Web Downloads.

  8. Step 8

    Create subfolders under Web Downloads for the different files commonly downloaded, such as image files, shareware programs, sound files or upgrades.

  9. Step 9

    This allows you to do fast checks with your anti-virus software on just one directory and easily back up downloaded files that you don't have a physical installation disk for.

  10. Step 10

    Install new programs into the Program Files folder, automatically created by Windows when it's installed. (Windows will make that folder anyway, so you might as well use it.)

Tips & Warnings
  • Create a text file (on Notepad or any other text editor), where you record the name, revision number and date of any programs that you download, to quickly determine whether you need upgrades later.
  • Don't move previously installed program directories around to organize your hard drive. Windows may not be able to find the files it needs to run a program once it's been moved.

Comments  

| View All 8 Comments
Flag This Comment

on 6/15/2009 I use a special program to see what I actually have on my pc - before everything is organized;) PrintMaestro from CoolUtils can print the directory tree with all the contents. From the developer's site:
+ print the Folder Tree with size information
+ print list of films (with fields like size, Duration, Width, Height, Codec, Aspect Ratio)
+ print list of photos (with fields like Create date, Orientation, Exposure time, Width, Height and Thumbnail)
+print list of songs (you can use Artist, Title, Album, Comment, tags or BitRate, Sample Rate, Channels, Duration tags)

Diablo2 said

Flag This Comment

on 6/5/2009 Very informative article, 5 stars.

sixfooter said

Flag This Comment

on 6/28/2008 I recommend a software called RoboBasket.
This program can save a lot of time on file organizing. You can apply the tips mentioned in this article but without spending a lot of time. You can define your rules in the program like this " if the file's extension is doc move to the office documents folder" or " if the file's extension is jpg and file size is greater than 2MB move to the photo folder".

You can have a set of rules like this. and when you drag and drop your files into the program window, the program will find the matched rule and run the actions related to the rule.

check it out at

http://www.easy-to-use-software.com/html/robobasket-help-to-keep-clean-desktop

dmkirk said

Flag This Comment

on 3/4/2008 The problem with this method is that once you organize your computer, it is difficult to find the file that you’re looking for; it often takes several clicks to get to the file. You might want to take a look at a program called Direcscape that makes navigating to files easier. The program can be found on
www.extsoftware.com

dizid said

Flag This Comment

on 6/19/2007 good article. The given tip i don't agree with, it seems an awfull lot of work to keep such a file updated and to check it regularly. imo a program that needs updates will -most likely- have functionality for that.

Post a Comment

Post a Comment
  • Have you done this? Click here to let us know.
I Did This

Related Ads

Computers
Alexia Petrakos,

Meet Alexia Petrakos eHow's Computers Expert.

Get Free Computers Newsletters

Copyright © 1999-2009 eHow, Inc. Use of this web site constitutes acceptance of the eHow Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.   en-US

eHow Computers
eHow_eHow Technology and Electronics