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(HFS here means “hierarchical file system”, i.e. one with nested folders.) I tire of the either-or dichotomy. Yes, search is great. But a couple years ago, I a

(HFS here means “hierarchical file system”, i.e. one with nested folders.) I tire of the either-or dichotomy. Yes, search is great. But a couple years ago, I adopted Johnny Decimal[0] for storing my archive files and I couldn’t be happier. Our 2023 tax filings are in 22.23. Physics articles are in 34.04. Her CME records are in 43.03. Go into one of those and you’ll find every file I have related to those things. And they’re still searchable. You can still do tag-based queries, indexed text searches, and all that, but you don’t have to. When I want all my 2025 tax deduction receipts come tax filing time next year, I’ll send the contents of 22.25 to my accountant and be done with it, confident we found 100% of the related files. I don’t do those for everything. Music files are in their own directories. Movies live with movies. I don’t try to shoehorn Obsidian into it. But all my long-term storage files go straight to their home in JD. This has the huge benefit that I can instantly locate them when I’m accessing the archive from my phone, my wife can find things without learning special tooling or the vagaries of search, and there’s zero need for any additional apps or software beyond Finder. I love using great search software. I used Devonthink daily for years. But I also adore not having to. [0] https://johnnydecimal.com/ https://johnnydecimal.com/

taeric 1y ago
I can only assume this is at least a spiritual ode to Dewey Decimal? Looks neat. I had hoped you meant that not being "either-or" would be that you should be able to get "realized hierarchies" on things. Where you could basically ask the computer to build a hierarchy on the fly.
- kstrauser 1y ago
  Huh, that’s an interesting idea. “Hey AI, here are 10,000 files. Make a hierarchical categorization of them” sounds like fun. In my case, I got a lot of value in coming up with that on my own. The result may not be rigorously perfect. In fact, I know it isn’t: some folders have lots of files, and some have few. It maps really well to my brain, though. That makes it easier for me to use, because I’m not memorizing a hierarchy someone else invented and pushed upon me. I’m using the system that sounded about right to me in the first place.
  - taeric 1y ago
    In a real sense, this is how random forest classifiers work? I think the main problem is that the original hierarchy can sometimes get lost. I would love a system that remembered the different organizations I had used and could let me move between them.
    - kstrauser 1y ago
      Kind of, yeah. And now I wish I had a visualization showing how that map evolved over time.
Brajeshwar 1y ago
May I also suggest trying this for the individual files? For instance, for a receipt/invoice of a value of date be `2025-06-04 $42 Description of the File.EXT`. That way, for a tax year `2024` containing expense receipts, the accountant or us can just look at the file name to confirm. If you still need to look, then opening the file works.
- kstrauser 1y ago
  Absolutely! I have a document scanner that names inbound files with the (ISO, of course) date and title of the doc (as gleaned from OCR), but once a week I process its inbox to fix up name problems and move files to their forever home. I use Hazel on my Mac to auto-rename bank statements etc like “$closing_date Visa statement.pdf” and move them to the right place automatically as soon as I save them to the ~/Downloads folder. All my new files look exactly like you’re describing. I give my accountant a set of files like “2023-06-08 Goodwill donation receipt.pdf” It’s slightly more effort to do this work up front, but pays off in spades when I need to actually retrieve something. Even without any fancy search software, just looking for files named like “2023receipt*” locates them.
  - Brajeshwar 1y ago
    Just before the Pandemic, I consulted for a company. I had to keep the receipts while on work travel. I gave them the zipped folder and when it expanded, they loved the organization and the naming convention enough to adopt it for their small team. :-)
    - kstrauser 1y ago
      I’m sure! Even if I abandoned Johnny Decimal and went all in on search vs sorting, I’m keeping the file naming convention. It’s clearly superior in practice.

taeric 1y ago

I can only assume this is at least a spiritual ode to Dewey Decimal? Looks neat. I had hoped you meant that not being "either-or" would be that you should be able to get "realized hierarchies" on things. Where you could basically ask the computer to build a hierarchy on the fly.

kstrauser 1y ago
Huh, that’s an interesting idea. “Hey AI, here are 10,000 files. Make a hierarchical categorization of them” sounds like fun. In my case, I got a lot of value in coming up with that on my own. The result may not be rigorously perfect. In fact, I know it isn’t: some folders have lots of files, and some have few. It maps really well to my brain, though. That makes it easier for me to use, because I’m not memorizing a hierarchy someone else invented and pushed upon me. I’m using the system that sounded about right to me in the first place.
- taeric 1y ago
  In a real sense, this is how random forest classifiers work? I think the main problem is that the original hierarchy can sometimes get lost. I would love a system that remembered the different organizations I had used and could let me move between them.
  - kstrauser 1y ago
    Kind of, yeah. And now I wish I had a visualization showing how that map evolved over time.

Brajeshwar 1y ago

May I also suggest trying this for the individual files? For instance, for a receipt/invoice of a value of date be `2025-06-04 $42 Description of the File.EXT`. That way, for a tax year `2024` containing expense receipts, the accountant or us can just look at the file name to confirm. If you still need to look, then opening the file works.

kstrauser 1y ago
Absolutely! I have a document scanner that names inbound files with the (ISO, of course) date and title of the doc (as gleaned from OCR), but once a week I process its inbox to fix up name problems and move files to their forever home. I use Hazel on my Mac to auto-rename bank statements etc like “$closing_date Visa statement.pdf” and move them to the right place automatically as soon as I save them to the ~/Downloads folder. All my new files look exactly like you’re describing. I give my accountant a set of files like “2023-06-08 Goodwill donation receipt.pdf” It’s slightly more effort to do this work up front, but pays off in spades when I need to actually retrieve something. Even without any fancy search software, just looking for files named like “2023receipt*” locates them.
- Brajeshwar 1y ago
  Just before the Pandemic, I consulted for a company. I had to keep the receipts while on work travel. I gave them the zipped folder and when it expanded, they loved the organization and the naming convention enough to adopt it for their small team. :-)
  - kstrauser 1y ago
    I’m sure! Even if I abandoned Johnny Decimal and went all in on search vs sorting, I’m keeping the file naming convention. It’s clearly superior in practice.