5 ms·

- bunch of random files in ~/Desktop/ - more random files in ~/Desktop/old/ - more more random files in ~/Desktop/old/old/... - real stuff in ~/dev and ~/

- bunch of random files in ~/Desktop/ - more random files in ~/Desktop/old/ - more more random files in ~/Desktop/old/old/... - real stuff in ~/dev and ~/Site/ - a mix of important and unimportant files in ~/Downloads/

chrisacky 8y ago
You forgot the "old desktop (2013)" naming structure. But yeah, that's exactly me.
- JohnStrangeII 8y ago
  Lucky you, I have nested subfolders with roughly the same folder structure within the old desktop from my even older desktops.
- mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
  I never thought another human being exists who does this exactly. I bet there are millions of us!
  - katbyte 8y ago
    I have a z.old with various folders in it - z.old/macbook.2016 - z.old/macbook.2013 - z.old/thinkpad.2011 - z.old/downloads.201705 - z.old/downloads.201701 - z.old/desktop.2014 - z.old/SERVERNAME.2018 going back to around 2002, I could probably delete the entire thing and not miss a thing heh
    - dublin 8y ago
      Mine's even uglier: Since disk storage grows much faster than my use of it, the last thing I do as I move to a new computer is to copy its entire hard disk to ~/archive/MachineName. (I do delete swap files since they're large on the newer images.) I (almost) never lose anything, but it's a bear to find things, and do I really need all those Windows files? On the other hand, I can easily recreate the entire working environment, OS, apps, and all this way, and that's saved my butt now a couple of times. Fortunately, Win10 makes it easy to delete Recycle Bin and Downloads after N days, so at least some things are self-cleaning...
owaislone 8y ago
- Desktop has the same fate this ^. Have a CLI tool that takes everything from the desktop and puts it in ~/Desktop/cleaned/ - ~tools/dotfiles/ hosts all dotfiles with a Makefile that sets everything up - ~tools/<randomTools> - contains mostly useful utilities and scripts like fonts, vpn configs, terminal color schemes, config patches to apply to `/etc/` after fresh install etc. - ~Projects/<client|company>/<project_name> for paid work projects - ~Projects/<projectName> for personal projects - ~Playground/<experiment> for experiments, prototypes or building software from github out of curiosity - ~Applications/<appName> for apps I build from source and copy/link binaries to `~/bin`. I'm on Linux so this is non-standard. - ~GoogleDrive/<accountName> for Google drive sync with Insync - ~Vaults/<vaultName> for mounting cryfs encrypted directories from the Google Drive directories. (some times use plasma vault for this)
- jason_slack 8y ago
  +1 for Playground/ I was just trying to decide where to put some experiments I was working on and Tests/ just didn't look right :-)
  - dcsan 8y ago
    I put 'em in ~/rad Research and Development
  - zaphar 8y ago
    I called my version of this ~/sandbox.
    - walljm 8y ago
      same here
    - jason_slack 8y ago
      Yeah I like this too. Perhaps I use playground/ for when I am in a good mood and sandbox/ when in a bad mood.
yial 8y ago
This is sadly so true of my own orginzation. My only addition would be - random documents of dubious value in “my documents”
a012 8y ago
Hey, it's exactly like me
keraf 8y ago
Doing exactly this but from time to time I move my old desktop folders in a backup folder with a date. But now I have so many in there with duplicate files. I'm sure I'd win a lot of disk space by merging/deduping those folders.
- JustSomeNobody 8y ago
  This is my problem right now. I'm trying to clean this all up and, while there's tools to find dupes, they're still cumbersome. I need a tool that will look for duplicate directory structures.
dwd 8y ago
This... https://xkcd.com/1360/ https://xkcd.com/1360/ I once found some x86 assembly code I'd written decades ago and buried real deep (the folder names were in ALLCAPS and no more than 8 characters.
- distances 8y ago
  Pretty much what the xkcd says. I basically never delete files, they just get moved to deeper layers as time goes by. I roughly know where to find my elementary school presentations, first websites, university assignments and emails, rotated irclogs.. The mental map will take me there if curiosity awakens, better not to mess it up by organising.
n1000 8y ago
Withought Spotlight I‘d be lost
fpgaminer 8y ago
I'm in a similar boat, and I'll mention one "weird trick" that has helped me. What used to happen was I'd download, say, an Ubuntu image, use it, and then say "... I might need this again" and leave it there. Then a week goes by, I've forgotten its there. Sorting by Date Added its now piled under 10 other items. The empire of dirt grows... The trick? A Trash that automatically empties items older than 30 days. MacOS has this, at least. (Note, this is a rolling empty; not an "empty everything every month" kind of deal). Now I just delete those "I might need this..." files. I know I can grab it from the Trash if I need it again, which I've done a few times. Most of the time, I didn't need it, and so it gets thrown out as it should. The effect is two fold. Obviously there's less junk in ~/Downloads in general. But that has the knock-on effect that it is now less daunting to go through and sweep up ~/Downloads. Empirically, my ~/Downloads, ~/old.Downloads, etc. used to be filled with easily 400 files and folders each. Now? My current ~/Downloads is at 76 items after two years. And that's currently at my peak; I'm about to go through and clear out about 20 of those things. Which is easy to do, compared to trying to face a mound of 400 files with names like "TEST.txt"...
- amenod 8y ago
  This is similar to /tmp/ on Linux (well, Debian at least). On each reboot it gets emptied which means I put there everything that I will probably not use after this session. Suspend / wake cycle doesn't empty /tmp/ directory, but just knowing it will get emptied sooner or later is enough.
- faster 8y ago
  I use Classifier to manage file in my Ubuntu Downloads directory; it moves files into subdirectories by extension. I run it daily from cron, and my backup script runs it before backing up. https://github.com/bhrigu123/classifier https://github.com/bhrigu123/classifier
- dublin 8y ago
  Win10 makes it easy to automatically empty the Recycle Bin and Downloads (but sadly, not other locations). One major PITA is that Firefox does not use the standard Downloads folder/directory, but has its own. It's configurable, of course, but I never remember until I've already got a zillion things in it, and I try to run everything with a minimum of customization.
djhworld 8y ago
Desktop is the dumping ground for screenshots for me. I take a lot of screenshots at work which get pasted into things like JIRA tickets, slack etc These end up accumulating on my desktop over the years until I can be bothered to delete them
- kalmar 8y ago
  This used to be me until I started using screenshot shortcuts that put images in the clipboard instead of files. You can paste directly into jira, slack, hangouts, whatsapp web, and many other places.
- mtrpcic 8y ago
  Screenshots are a big part of my workflow too, and this made things feel a lot cleaner for me. This will automatically put all your screenshots into a specific folder (assuming you're on OSX). mkdir ~/Pictures/Screenshots defaults write com.apple.screencapture location ~/Pictures/Screenshots

chrisacky 8y ago

You forgot the "old desktop (2013)" naming structure. But yeah, that's exactly me.

JohnStrangeII 8y ago
Lucky you, I have nested subfolders with roughly the same folder structure within the old desktop from my even older desktops.
mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
I never thought another human being exists who does this exactly. I bet there are millions of us!
- katbyte 8y ago
  I have a z.old with various folders in it - z.old/macbook.2016 - z.old/macbook.2013 - z.old/thinkpad.2011 - z.old/downloads.201705 - z.old/downloads.201701 - z.old/desktop.2014 - z.old/SERVERNAME.2018 going back to around 2002, I could probably delete the entire thing and not miss a thing heh
  - dublin 8y ago
    Mine's even uglier: Since disk storage grows much faster than my use of it, the last thing I do as I move to a new computer is to copy its entire hard disk to ~/archive/MachineName. (I do delete swap files since they're large on the newer images.) I (almost) never lose anything, but it's a bear to find things, and do I really need all those Windows files? On the other hand, I can easily recreate the entire working environment, OS, apps, and all this way, and that's saved my butt now a couple of times. Fortunately, Win10 makes it easy to delete Recycle Bin and Downloads after N days, so at least some things are self-cleaning...

owaislone 8y ago

- Desktop has the same fate this ^. Have a CLI tool that takes everything from the desktop and puts it in ~/Desktop/cleaned/ - ~tools/dotfiles/ hosts all dotfiles with a Makefile that sets everything up - ~tools/<randomTools> - contains mostly useful utilities and scripts like fonts, vpn configs, terminal color schemes, config patches to apply to `/etc/` after fresh install etc. - ~Projects/<client|company>/<project_name> for paid work projects - ~Projects/<projectName> for personal projects - ~Playground/<experiment> for experiments, prototypes or building software from github out of curiosity - ~Applications/<appName> for apps I build from source and copy/link binaries to `~/bin`. I'm on Linux so this is non-standard. - ~GoogleDrive/<accountName> for Google drive sync with Insync - ~Vaults/<vaultName> for mounting cryfs encrypted directories from the Google Drive directories. (some times use plasma vault for this)

jason_slack 8y ago
+1 for Playground/ I was just trying to decide where to put some experiments I was working on and Tests/ just didn't look right :-)
- dcsan 8y ago
  I put 'em in ~/rad Research and Development
- zaphar 8y ago
  I called my version of this ~/sandbox.
  - walljm 8y ago
    same here
  - jason_slack 8y ago
    Yeah I like this too. Perhaps I use playground/ for when I am in a good mood and sandbox/ when in a bad mood.

yial 8y ago

This is sadly so true of my own orginzation. My only addition would be - random documents of dubious value in “my documents”

a012 8y ago

Hey, it's exactly like me

keraf 8y ago

Doing exactly this but from time to time I move my old desktop folders in a backup folder with a date. But now I have so many in there with duplicate files. I'm sure I'd win a lot of disk space by merging/deduping those folders.

JustSomeNobody 8y ago
This is my problem right now. I'm trying to clean this all up and, while there's tools to find dupes, they're still cumbersome. I need a tool that will look for duplicate directory structures.

dwd 8y ago

This... https://xkcd.com/1360/ https://xkcd.com/1360/ I once found some x86 assembly code I'd written decades ago and buried real deep (the folder names were in ALLCAPS and no more than 8 characters.

distances 8y ago
Pretty much what the xkcd says. I basically never delete files, they just get moved to deeper layers as time goes by. I roughly know where to find my elementary school presentations, first websites, university assignments and emails, rotated irclogs.. The mental map will take me there if curiosity awakens, better not to mess it up by organising.

n1000 8y ago

Withought Spotlight I‘d be lost

fpgaminer 8y ago

I'm in a similar boat, and I'll mention one "weird trick" that has helped me. What used to happen was I'd download, say, an Ubuntu image, use it, and then say "... I might need this again" and leave it there. Then a week goes by, I've forgotten its there. Sorting by Date Added its now piled under 10 other items. The empire of dirt grows... The trick? A Trash that automatically empties items older than 30 days. MacOS has this, at least. (Note, this is a rolling empty; not an "empty everything every month" kind of deal). Now I just delete those "I might need this..." files. I know I can grab it from the Trash if I need it again, which I've done a few times. Most of the time, I didn't need it, and so it gets thrown out as it should. The effect is two fold. Obviously there's less junk in ~/Downloads in general. But that has the knock-on effect that it is now less daunting to go through and sweep up ~/Downloads. Empirically, my ~/Downloads, ~/old.Downloads, etc. used to be filled with easily 400 files and folders each. Now? My current ~/Downloads is at 76 items after two years. And that's currently at my peak; I'm about to go through and clear out about 20 of those things. Which is easy to do, compared to trying to face a mound of 400 files with names like "TEST.txt"...

amenod 8y ago
This is similar to /tmp/ on Linux (well, Debian at least). On each reboot it gets emptied which means I put there everything that I will probably not use after this session. Suspend / wake cycle doesn't empty /tmp/ directory, but just knowing it will get emptied sooner or later is enough.
faster 8y ago
I use Classifier to manage file in my Ubuntu Downloads directory; it moves files into subdirectories by extension. I run it daily from cron, and my backup script runs it before backing up. https://github.com/bhrigu123/classifier https://github.com/bhrigu123/classifier
dublin 8y ago
Win10 makes it easy to automatically empty the Recycle Bin and Downloads (but sadly, not other locations). One major PITA is that Firefox does not use the standard Downloads folder/directory, but has its own. It's configurable, of course, but I never remember until I've already got a zillion things in it, and I try to run everything with a minimum of customization.

djhworld 8y ago

Desktop is the dumping ground for screenshots for me. I take a lot of screenshots at work which get pasted into things like JIRA tickets, slack etc These end up accumulating on my desktop over the years until I can be bothered to delete them

kalmar 8y ago
This used to be me until I started using screenshot shortcuts that put images in the clipboard instead of files. You can paste directly into jira, slack, hangouts, whatsapp web, and many other places.
mtrpcic 8y ago
Screenshots are a big part of my workflow too, and this made things feel a lot cleaner for me. This will automatically put all your screenshots into a specific folder (assuming you're on OSX). mkdir ~/Pictures/Screenshots defaults write com.apple.screencapture location ~/Pictures/Screenshots