I think "folder" is a more practical name than "directory". Group or fileset or collection, etc., would probably work, too. The problem with directory is that i

I think "folder" is a more practical name than "directory". Group or fileset or collection, etc., would probably work, too. The problem with directory is that it is describing the implementation instead of the result. The result you're after as an ordinary user is a container holding a group of files, not a "directory" that lets you look up a filename and be told where to go find it. As an implementation, of course, the latter is closer to what a file system "directory" really does, but that's not the most useful metaphor to present to the ordinary user. And does a phone directory contain individual listings plus other phone directories? No, but that's what "directory" meant to most people back when the name was changed to "folder". And the name change happened when GUIs were first created and needed icons to represent a thing to drop files into. You don't drop files into directories, you drop them into folders or file drawers or something. (Of course, my father can't stop calling a folder a "file", because file folders were so often called "files" at the office way back when. Oh, well.) I've called them "directories" since before the Mac existed, so the word was long ago defined in my head by the thing itself and could be called a watermelon for all the difference it would make to me, but if I look at it with a beginner's mind, "directory" doesn't seem like a very good name.