For tags I use meta data, which are included as mapped text at the extreme end of many media formats. For example ID3 data on MP3 files. I have found this incr

For tags I use meta data, which are included as mapped text at the extreme end of many media formats. For example ID3 data on MP3 files. I have found this incredibly helpful for MP3s because I have thousands of them and there are many similar names. Windows Explorer provides columns for this data in its detailed file system view (not by default) which is incredibly helpful and trivial to customize. For everything else folders are enough. I have hundreds of movies on a hard disk and yet folders are enough. When I do need more the data I want is generated by the file system: last modified, file size, and so forth. What improves file usability the most for me is network access by meta data. For example Windows Explorer and OSX Finder are nice but I would rather have the exact same interface on the same local machine for a bunch of remote machines regardless of their file system or operating system. Then copy to a different machine is just drag and drop from one window onto another in an application that looks like some local OS, that windowing interface needs to allow sorting and filtering and search by meta data just like Windows Explorer. Having an application that does this for me has been great.