Productivity Series: Files and Folders

See how I organize my files and folders, use iCloud Drive and local files, an Archive drive, Finder views and more.

You can also watch this video at YouTube (but with ads).

Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let me show you how I organize my files and folders. 
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So here's another episode of my Productivity Series where I show you how I do things on my Mac. Maybe you can get some ideas from how I work. One of the primary things you need to figure out as a Mac user is where do you put your things, how do you organize them so you can find them, get your work done and be more productive. So I try to keep things pretty simple. Most of my stuff is in my Documents folder. I have my Documents folder in iCloud so it's available on my main Mac on my Desktop and also my laptop Mac and I can access it on my iPhone and iPad if I need to. Now this is my demo account but I've tried to make it look at lot like my real account. 
So I have folders that make sense for what I do. I've got this one folder here called MacMost and that has all my MacMost stuff in it. There are some folders for my video projects for the website. Things like that. Under Video Projects there's a folder for every episode I do. But I also have folders for my App Development, mostly games so all of my Swift projects and Air projects are in there. I've got Web Site Development folders. So I've got folders for all the websites I maintain with the files that are needed for those in there. I've got Projects for other things. That's kind of like miscellaneous work stuff. So any projects that I come up with, a new idea and new thing I'm working on, I'll create a folder in there. I have a Business folder and that has all the accounting stuff and receipts and taxes and all that goes in the Business folder. I've got a Personal folder for stuff that really isn't business. It's personal stuff. Thinks having to do with my house, with my family, with cars, with any type of file that's more of a personal nature than a business nature. 
Now I mentioned that this is all saved in iCloud Drive. So I'm using iCloud Drive but how exactly am I using it. Well, if I go to System Preferences and Apple ID and then I look here at the bottom I have Optimize Mac Storage turned Off. So my MacPro, which is what we're looking at right now, that has a huge drive in it. I've made sure the drive is big enough for me to store all of my stuff locally. So I don't need to use Optimize Mac Storage here. Every file I've got in iCloud Drive is on my hard drive right here in my office. Now on my Laptop I have the opposite set. I have Optimize Mac Storage turned On. My laptop has a much smaller drive and I don't need everything on that drive. So I have it turned On there so only recent files and files that I'm more likely to need right now are there and everything else is downloaded on demand. Now having this turned Off on my MacPro also means that since every file is available on my Mac, Time Machine backup is complete. All the files are there and Time Machine Backup backs up everything.
Now the other thing I do differently between my desktop and my laptop is how I handle desktop in Documents. So here with iCloud Drive I have Desktop and Documents turned On. So the Desktop and Documents folder, mostly the Documents folder here, this is all iCloud Drive. So I just use my Documents folder as I would normally. Everything is in iCloud Drive. I don't even have to think about it. But my laptop, I have that turned Off. The Desktop and Documents folder are actually pretty empty. Unless I'm just working on some new idea or something, maybe while traveling, then I might use the Documents folder for temporary storage. But I can still access my iCloud Desktop and Document's folders anytime I want by simply going to iCloud Drive. In iCloud Drive I can look in Documents and there is everything. So I have the best of both worlds on my laptop. A local Desktop and Documents folder and my iCloud Desktop and Documents folder. They are all available to me using that system.
Now I don't have everything in iCloud Drive. If I go to my Home folder here I do have a local Documents folder but I don't really use it. It's in case I need to store something locally that's not on iCloud Drive. But what I use all the time though is all of my files for recording these tutorials. They are huge files. Many gigs in size everyday. I don't want to put that in iCloud Drive. It's going to be a lot of back and forth transfer and I don't need them on iCloud Drive. I can do my video here at my desk, get it done, and publish it. I never need to switch to my laptop or access it from somewhere else. So since that's primarily video content I decided to use the Movies folder. In the Movies folder I have a Screen Flow folder, since screen flow is the app that I use to create the tutorial. In the Movies folders I have folders for iMovie, Final Cut Pro, and other video related things like the TV app. So it makes sense to create one for Screen Flow, make it App based. Inside of Screen Flow I have a folder for every video I create. So when I'm working on my tutorials all those files are being saved locally only. They're in my Home folder, Movies, Screen Flow. They are not being saved to iCloud.
Now since these files are so big I don't want to keep them all on my internal hard drive all the time. So after a few weeks, each one gets archived. I have an external drive that's called Archive. That's a big 5 terabyte drive and I have all sorts of things on there. I use it all the time to take old episodes of MacMost and put all the files there onto the Archive Drive. Time Machine is still backing that up and I have an online backup using Backblaze which is backing up both my internal and this archive drive. So everything is getting backed up just fine. But I'll put files here to get them off of my internal drive. So mostly MacMost files. If say I have an app that I have developed that I am no longer developing I will move that to the archive drive as well. So old projects, things I probably don't need anymore and also static information like, for instance, I have one here called ClipArt and Media. So any ClipArt collections, photos collections, audio collections, and things like that. Things that are kind of read only. I'm not going to be working with these files. I'm just going to have them there as a library and pick and choose one and bring it into a project somewhere else. I'll also store those on the Archive Drive. 
So some other bits here. I definitely have mostly everything I do in Documents. How about my Desktop? It looks like this. I keep it clean and empty. I try not to clutter my desktop with files or folders or anything like that. Occasionally, if I come up with an idea and I want to start something right away, a Pages document or Numbers document, a video, something like that and I haven't even thought about how I'm going to organize it I'll save it to the Desktop temporarily, get working while my energy is high and later in that day I'll find out the proper place to store it in Documents or the Screen Flow folder or somewhere else. 
Now how about my Sidebar? I try to keep that pretty simple as well. Under iCloud I've got iCloud Drive so I can access everything. I've got Desktop and Documents there and under Favorites I try to keep everything pretty simple. As a matter of fact if I really count I don't even have Recents or Applications there. I'll just have my Home folder, a Favorite for Screen Flow since I go to that folder all the time, and maybe for the App that I develop the most, my Mah Jong App. So that's there and I can easily get to that. 
How about Finder, Views. So I love the Column View. Column View for me is great to be able to just dig down into things. You get to see a Preview and everything like that. But I have to admit that more and more I'm using List View for a lot of things because I like how you can open something up and then maybe open up something else and see files within the same list even though they are in different folders. I almost never use Icon or Gallery View. It's always Column or List. 
Now how about the Finder itself. I know a lot of people will have a Finder window open like this and they'll Close it, they'll Open it again and then just basically Open and Close Finder windows as needed. I don't work that way. I have one Finder window open all the time. It has several tabs in it. So, for instance, this tab may be pointed to the MacMost folder. This one maybe to the Screen Flow folder. This one maybe to my Projects Folder and then maybe this one is somewhere else. It changes all the time. I basically keep this window open all the time. I have it on my second screen so it's out of the way. But even on my laptop where I don't have a second screen I just have this window open all the time. I'll Hide the Finder if I don't want to see it or it's just behind everything else. 
So often I'm asked by people like how do I get the columns to be the same width. Maybe if I'm in List View how do I get things to be setup just so. You know if I close the Finder window and open a new one then I don't like how things are arranged and I to work with it all again. I don't worry about that because I simply have this Finder window open all the time and I never close it. If I set the width of things up or the columns that are in List View it just stays like that because I never close the Finder window. 
So there's some insight as to how I organize my files and folders and use the Finder on my Mac. I'd love to hear your productivity tips for files, folders, and the Finder as well in the comments below. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 8 Responses to “Productivity Series: Files and Folders”

Ken

3 years ago

Gary, I have a three external hard drives. One as a time machine backup. One for my Final Cut Pro projects and one for an archive. I see you have a time machine back up and an Archive drive. How do you (or I) backup these external drives. thanks Ken

Gary Rosenzweig

Ken: My archive drive is backed up via both Time Machine and online with Backblaze.

Razvan Mihai

Gary: Is there an Optimize Storage option for iOS /iPad OS? I tried to look under the apple id, similar to how you showed for macOS, and could not find it. Also, how do you deal with Photos taken on iPhones? Do you keep them in sync on your Mac?

Razvan: No, there is no option. It always behaves as if it is on. Files in the Files app appear there, and download on demand.

Liz Babb

Hi Gary, it would be a great follow on to this post to find out how you name files. For example, I have a folder structure for a newsletter I write, but then within that do you file by year? How do you actually name your tutorial files for example? 2021.11.11 Productivity Series - Files and folders.mov? I'm always struggling with title structure for my files.

Liz: Each episode gets a folder, like 2567MissionControlTips. The number is the episode number, and then I try to describe the video in a few words. If you look in there the ScreenFlow file is 2567MissionControlTips.screenflow and the text file with the description is 2567MissionControlTips.txt and the exported video is 2567MissionControlTips.mp4, etc. But there will also be things like notes.txt and whatever else I need in that folder. The recent ones are in my Movies/ScreenFlow folder on my Mac, and they are archived to a big folder on my Archive drive after a few weeks.

Felicity

When typing name of a file or folder, cursor randomly moves away from field where I’m typing, ending process of naming/renaming file folder or tab group in Safari or Finder. Happens on pressing any key- no pattern
When I create new Safari TabGroup, default name Untitled is highlighted (as expected to allow renaming) but even if I do nothing (don’t touch Mac) after few seconds, highlighted area becomes greyed out, finalising folder name “Untitled”. Suggesting its not a keyboard/trackpad issue

Felicity: Sounds like perhaps you have a problem with your trackpad or mouse.

Comments Closed.

Productivity Series: Files and Folders

Comments: 8 Responses to “Productivity Series: Files and Folders”

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