How To Organize Files On Your Mac

Both new and current Mac users often ask me how they should organize their files on their Mac. Here is my advice for how to do it.

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Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Le me show you how to organize the files on your Mac. 
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Now how you organize the files on your Mac is really up to you. There are so many different ways to do it. I'm going to show you one way that's the way that I would advise any good friend to do it. That's primarily to use the Documents Folder to store all of your files and to organize things there in folders.
So let's say you're starting with a bunch of files that you have just scattered on your desktop. Maybe you've got no files yet or maybe you have a bunch of files in other folders elsewhere. Now let's make sure we're in the Finder here. The Finder is the app that we use to organize our files and we see Finder is the app we are currently using because it is in the Menu Bar there. If you don't see it you can always click on the Finder icon here at the bottom left. Then you can go, under Finder, to a New Finder Window to create a new window. Chances are you'll probably see the Recents List here. Recents is not a location but a list of files you've recently accessed. We want to go to an actual location. In this case we want to go to the Documents Folder. So if we use Go we can go to Documents and you can see here I've got an empty Documents Folder. 
There is actually two different places where your Documents Folder can be located. One is to have it in your Home Folder. The other is in iCloud Drive. I think most people today will benefit from having it in iCloud Drive. So, in System Settings under Apple ID and then iCloud and then iCloud Drive I've got iCloud Drive turned On and I've got Desktop and Documents Folders turned On as well. That means my Documents Folder is part of iCloud Drive, not my local Home Folder and the files in my Documents Folder are available across all my Apple devices. As a matter of fact if I Command click on Documents here at the top I can see it is, in fact, in iCloud Drive. 
So now I can organize everything here in my Documents Folder. This is what the Documents Folder is meant for. To hold all of your stuff and it is a great practice just to have everything here under the Documents Folder. So if you ever need to backup all your stuff, make a Copy of it, Archive it, or just you want to find your things you know to always start in the Documents Folder. But we don't want to just put everything here at the top level. It would just be a mess. So we want to create some folders here that will hold things based on what the file is for. For instance, you may want to have a folder here for all of your personal stuff. We're going to go to File, and then New Folder or Shift Command N. I'm going to create a folder here and right away I'm in Rename Mode when a new folder is created.  So I'm going to type Personal and this is a folder to hold my Personal files. I'm going to do it again and I'm going to create one and I'm going to call it Work. So I've got two folders here. This is a good start. I've got one for all my personal files and one for my work files.
Now I can look at the files I've got here and start to move them in. So, for instance, here is something that might belong in my Personal Folder. Here's something else that can go personal. But if I look at some of the other files here I may find that I've got here a work file, maybe another work file, and I can continue to organize. At some point I may notice that another folder could be useful. So I'm going to create another one here. I'm going to call this one Images. I'm going to move these images here. I can select one and then Command click to select more than one, and now drag them all at once. I'll put these in here. Now I can keep going and organize these things as I want. Now you can see I've cleaned all this up. I don't have anymore clutter on my Desktop and I've got everything in these three folders. 
Now having everything here in this Icon View can make it hard to see all your stuff. After all we may have more than just these three folders. We can have dozens of them and it is going to get cluttered again. So instead of using Icon View go to View and then use either Column View or List View. Column View puts everything in a column. Here I've got the Documents Folder level here and I can select anyone of these folders and see everything inside it. I could also go to List View and then here I've got all the folders and I can open each one up and close it to see everything that is there. Let's expand this window a bit here and take a look at what we've got. So we've got just three folders. But you're probably going to have a lot more. You may also want to have some subfolders. So, for instance, if I look here under Personal notice I've got a couple here that have to do with taxes or finances. So let's create a new folder here. I'm going to do New Folder and create this one called Finances. I'm going to drag and drop that into the Personal Folder. So in other words this is Personal Finances. Now I can drag and drop these files into here. So now I've got further organization. So I can create not only folders at the top level but folders down another level and you can keep going. You can create as many folders as make sense for you. 
Another way to create folders is to select the file first. So here I've got a receipt for something and let's say I want to create a folder to hold all my personal receipts. Once I've got this selected if I go to File I can see not only can I create a new folder but I can create a new folder with what is selected. So I'll create that and you could see I can now name it, like that, and that will hold all my receipts. 
The most important thing that I can teach you here is that you should always be organizing and reorganizing things. Just because you've set it up like this doesn't mean you need to keep it like this. If you notice something isn't working for you change it. You can change the names of these folders. You can create new folders and move files there. It is easy to create new folders. It is easy to change folders and you should be doing that to always be updating your organizational structure to fit your needs. This is something that is going to grow with you over time. Not something that you're going to setup once and then use the same way forever. It is also going to vary greatly from person to person. One person may have tons of folders at the Documents level and very few subfolders. Other people may have just a few folders at the top level and then tons of subfolders in there. Some people may like to have lots of different types of files together in a folder while others may want to have tons of different folders each with just a few files in them. It is really up to you and whatever you decide it is not permanent. You can always rearrange things. 
Now once you've got these folders the trick is being able to find things. Getting to you Documents folder is usually pretty easy. In the sidebar here you should see Documents  under iCloud. You can even take this and move it up to Favorites. I'll stick it right here at the top so I can easily get to it. So, if I'm somewhere else, like I'm looking at Recents here, I can easily click on Documents to go right to my Documents folder. Not only that, when I'm in other apps and I go to Open I can access the same sidebar here. So I can click here to go to my Documents folder and have basically a little mini Finder. It's really easy to get to your Documents Folder here. That same is true when you go to Save something for the first time. You go to Save. You've got Documents right here under Favorites on the left so it is easy to get there. 
But you don't just have to have documents there. You can have any folder here that you want. So, for instance, if you find you're using this Receipts Folder a lot you can drag that to Favorites as well. Now it is not correct to say that Receipts is now in the Sidebar. It's not. This is just a shortcut to get there. Now another thing you may want to do is set the default folder to something other than Recents. Recents can be handy and it is fine if you want to use it that way. But if you'd rather have Documents by your default location you can do that. In Finder go to Settings and then under General set New Finder Window Show to change it to Documents. So now when you create a new Finder Window it will always start at the Documents folder. 
So here are a few extra tips. Not only do you create files but you often Download files. By default these go into the Downloads folder which can really get cluttered up with a lot of things. It is the best practice not to keep anything in the Downloads Folder but to move things to the appropriate folder in your Documents Folder right away. Better yet, when you're downloading something, like I'm going to download this PDF from my site, you can Control Click on it, or two-finger click on a trackpad or right click on a mouse, like this and then you can choose, instead of Download Linked File, Download Linked File As. Now you can actually choose a location. I can go to the Documents Folder here and I can put it in its proper place. You can even create a New Folder at this point. So, for instance, it could be useful here to have a New Folder in the Documents Folder called References and have some files like this in it. So I'll Save it there. So there instead of cluttering up my Downloads Folder I've placed this download exactly where it should go. Now sometimes you don't have the option to actually choose the Download Linked File As. Sometimes it will go to your Downloads Folder whether you want it to or not. But that's fine. In that case just go to your Downloads Folder and then take it and immediately drag it to the place you want it to go. The whole idea is to keep all your files organized in your Documents Folder and you Downloads Folder empty. 
The same it true with Screenshots. If you use Shift Command 5 to bring up the Screenshot Controls here then you can go to Options and choose where to save a Screenshot to. By default it goes to the Desktop which creates clutter. You can have it go to the Documents Folder but you don't want it at the top level of the Documents Folder either. So you can, instead, have it go to, say, to Preview where you can get to choose where to save it every time. Or choose another location and perhaps there go to your Documents Folder and you can even create a New Folder here called Screenshots if you like and now your Screenshots will go to this folder here. 
Here's one last tip. If you have the Documents Folder in iCloud Drive then what happens if you want to create a file that you don't want to be in iCloud Drive. Maybe it is a huge file or folder full of really large files and you don't want it to take up space in your limited iCloud Drive storage. Well you can still go to the Home Folder. In your Home Folder you've got things like Movies, Music, pictures, and so on. So it is often handy to have a New Folder here called Local Documents and I like to call it that instead of just documents so it is never confusing when you see the name of the folder. Then anything you store in Local Documents will be in your Home Folder that is only on your Mac. It is not available on iCloud Drive. 
There's my advice on how to organize everything on your Mac. Put it all in your Documents Folder in iCloud Drive and keep your Desktop and Downloads Folders clean and empty and create a local documents folder in your Home Folder in case you need somethings stored completely off-line. Your needs are going to be different than everybody else's. So you can look at this as a place to start and then modify it from there. I hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 9 Responses to “How To Organize Files On Your Mac”

Thomas

11 months ago

Hi, I’ve also pinned my iCloud Documents folder to the Favorites sidebar. But, it doesn’t stick there. After a few days and maybe related to System Updates, the Documents alias will disappear. Is there anything I can check or resent so that it will stay there? Thanks

Gary Rosenzweig

Thomas: It should remain there, not sure why it is changing for you, sorry.

Rob

Gary. Great video! What is the total character count that a file name can have? I try to be as descriptive as a I can (without going overboard. Does the PATH (folder names) count in the character count? If other words, if you have Documents\Home\Recipes\Main Courses\Mississippi Pot Roast.docx (as an example), is the path included in the character count?

Than you!

Rob: I believe it is 256. The path wouldn't count, just the name of the file. Test it and see.

Kathy Clapp

I have learned so much from you in my transition from PC to iMac. Thank you so much!

Michael

Hi Gary, Great video. Do you keep your pictures folder in the documents folder? And secondarily, is there a photo folder that is associated with the photo app, or are the pictures just stored under pictures? Thanks. Coming from a windows world, learning the file architecture is taking time.

Michael: The Pictures folder is a default folder in your Home folder. It shouldn't be in the Documents folder. Typically the Photos app stores everything in a library inside this Pictures folder. That's why it is important that it is in your local Home folder, not in the Documents folder. If it was in the Documents folder and you had your Documents folder as part of iCloud Drive, then your Photos library would be stored both in iCloud Drive and in iCloud Photos, doubling the amount of iCloud Drive space it was using. If you want to have another folder with image files in it that is not related to the Photos app, then you can put that in the Documents folder if you like, or perhaps at the main level of iCloud Drive. Depends on what is in it and how you like to organize.

Jeanne Bragg

I think I have created a monster. I starting organizing my PES files (for embroidery machines) in Dropbox, and liked the efficiency of it so much (acess from all my computers, etc.) I organized all my files there. When I wanted to copy, say, the recipe file for my children, they had to be individually opened under Dropbox. Is there a way to get all these files out of Dropbox and into documents easily?
I learned so much from you. Thanks in advance.

Jeanne: If you want to move them from your Dropbox folder to your Documents folder then do just that: move them. Use drag and drop.

How To Organize Files On Your Mac

Comments: 9 Responses to “How To Organize Files On Your Mac”

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