How My File System Is Organized
Reader Christian Kuttruff sent me an email a few days back after my post, How Does Your Mac Look?
He wanted to know how my file system was organized on my Mac because he was looking for the perfect way to sort his.
My file system is perfectly organized, I know where everything is, and can bring up anything in seconds using then Finder, let’s take a look with a few screenshots of the folders in my home folder.
Here is my home folder. It’s setup the exact same way as the stock Apple configuration, except my custom “Agua” icon-set by David Lanham.
I created folders inside the documents folder that store my main type’s of documents.
- “Blog” holds files that have something to do with this site.
- “iChats” is the folder created by iChat to store chat logs.
- “Magazines” is for such things as the iLounge buyer guides.
- “School” holds all my essays and reports.
- “Serials” is for applications which store their serial in a specific file (such as The Potion Factory apps)
- “Templates” is for cool WordPress themes I come across.
- “The Crate” is a dumping ground where I put files that I have to sort.
- “Work” is where I store work that I have done for magazine’s like Macguide, and sites such as ProBlogger.
The movies folder is quite simple. The Apple folder is used for keynotes and episodes of shows such as ScreenCastsOnline. My Projects is stuff I have worked on in iMovie. Others is just like “The Crate”, but for video content. Revision 3 is a folder for shows like Diggnation and Pixel Perfect, and TV Shows is for just that.
My Music folder is plan simple. With just two folders, GarageBand and iTunes. Most of the stuff I create in GarageBand gets exported to iTunes, and my iTunes library is currently 33GB in size.
In my pictures library, I have three items. My Aperture library where my image library is stored. My iPhoto library, where I store desktop backgrounds and Photo Booth images, and Photo Booth which is required by the application - I clear the Photo Booth folder each week into iPhoto.
Sorry for the lengthy post which didn’t contain too many tips or tricks, but hopefully it will answer a few of the people who have been emailing me about my file system. Until tomorrow, bye!
#1
Josh → maconlyreview.wordpress.com
Wow that’s neat. I recently changed over to the Amora icons which are crazy and wacky but this post has persuaded me to go back over to my Aqua Neue icons. All done through CandyBar of course
#2
Smaran → smarandayal.com
Interesting file structure you have, Glenn. I’ll try and get mine organised and show it you all tomorrow.
The basics are a lot like yours.
#3
Glenn Wolsey → www.glennwolsey.com
Josh, it’s a great icon set isn’t it? I love it.
Smaran, thanks. Good luck on getting it all sorted.
#4
Smaran → smarandayal.com
@ Josh: CandyBar’s great. I recently zapped it because I didn’t want to spend money buying it. It seems like an unnecessary expense.
Hey Glenn, how about creating a set of forums where we can discuss all this kind of stuff? I think we’ve got us a little community here. It’s great that we’re all commenting so much, but don’t you think the threads are getting a bit too long? And the posts a bit too general? I mean, maybe we can move ‘the social’ (LOL!) to another place and keep your blog more clean and qualitative, somehow.
#5
Glenn Wolsey → www.glennwolsey.com
I will seriously take that into consideration Smaran. Give it some weeks and you’ll probably see that feature implemented.
#6
Josh → maconlyreview.wordpress.com
@Smaran
Firstly I do agree with creating a set of forums for this kind of talk, though I don’t know what kind of costs would be associated with this. Secondly I purchased CandyBar only because I went on a shareware app binge and it seemed like a nice app to buy. Pixadex might have been a better buy
#7
Smaran → smarandayal.com
@ Glenn: Thanks. Let us know when you decide.
@ Josh: What’s the difference between the two? Pixadex seems to be more expensive, but also more lenient about upgrades. They say it’s the iPhoto for icons on the Mac. Maybe I’ll download the demo and give it a shot.
I’m glad you agree with me about the forums. I don’t think it should cost Glenn anything other than a few hours of time to set them up and whatever bandwidth is used when we use them. Most forum CMSes are Open Source these days. Maybe a reader with some CSS skills could help out with the design too.
#8
yannic → yannicwalter.de
I agree with Smaran and Josh, forums are cool.
@ Topic:
I have to clean my HDD up. I love clean folder organization. Unfortunately I lost my structure while developing my website..
#9
Codie WestphallVery organised i feel a redesign of folder layout comming very soon
#10
phil → blog.syslinx.org
Where can I get these Aqua Neue icons from?
#11
Taylor → www.taylorsblog.com
@ Smaran:
I totally agree with the forum idea :-).
@ Yannic:
Same thing, web site = no organization. :-P.
@ Phil:
I agree, where? When I get a mac I seriously want to get my hands on those icons!
#12
Christian Kuttruff → www.jungfreudlich.de
Hi Glenn!
thanks for this great topic! I really appreciate mentioning my question to you ;-) You could have linked my name to my website http://www.jungfreudlich.de. Unfortunately, I do not have so many readers so far.
Anyway: I really like the way you are writing and explaining things related to the mac.
#13
Josh Kaplan → josh-kaplan.com
I’m impressed. My home folder is very disorganized. If I sat down for 20 minutes and tried it would look much better. But I’m too lazy. Oh well.
#14
Paul Brown → www.paulbrown.us
Glenn,
How do you manage having both a desktop and a laptop. I have both, and I have trouble implementing a “master” file structure that will keep everything so nice and clean because I use both my G5 and MacBook so much.
#15
Josh → maconlyreview.wordpress.com
These icons are actually called Agua and they can be found here. Another one of my favourites Aqua Neue which can be found here. Hopefully I’m going to do a piece on icon favourites soon on my blog.
#16
Indraneel → imindraneel.wordpress.com
Neater than i’ll ever be, that much i’ll say. What do you make in garageband? piano, guitar or something else?
#17
Smaran → smarandayal.com
@ Taylor: Those icons are also available for Win-doze, just like the Amora ones. The Windows versions could also prove useful for us Mac users who have XP installed under Boot Camp or Fusion/Parallels. It would leave us less disoriented.
@ Christian: Is the name of your web-site “Young & Friendly”? ‘Jung’ bedeutet ‘young’ und ‘freundlich’, ‘friendly’ oder?
@ Paul & Glenn: How do you chaps manage two computers? I find it hard enough organising one! I mean, what files do you keep where and which one of the two computers do you use more? If you use .Mac or another IMAP service syncing e-mails shouldn’t be too hard. But what about chat logs, songs, RSS feed items etc.? I would hate to have to go through the same feed items twice. There are too many!
@ Indraneel: Talking about GarageBand, Glenn still has to tell me what he thinks of a song I sent him.
#18
Paul → paulbrown.us
Smaran,
For my news feeds, I use NetNewsWire tied to a free newsgator account. This way both my Macs stay in sync as far as RSS feeds go. For email, I use my college’s IMAP option on that email account, and on my other email accounts I use IMAP when possible.
#19
Smaran → smarandayal.com
Paul,
Is this service that NetNewsWire offers free? And do they, by any chance, have a Linux client? If both of those things check out, then I can happily switch from Vienna.
Other than RSS, .Mac does a lot in regards to syncing. That would be the main reason I’d pay for it. That and backups, but now that Time Machine is on the way, I would have no need for .Mac’s Backup app.
I just thought of something interesting. .Mac syncs your Safari bookmarks too, right? So, if you’re using Safari RSS, then it should sync your feeds too. Can anyone with an account check if it maintains the read count between machines? That would be quite cool.
#20
Glenn Wolsey → www.glennwolsey.com
Smaran, your song is awesome! Feel free to zip up some more music and send it my way.
I will write up an article sometime soon about how I manage using two Mac’s.
#21
Smaran → smarandayal.com
Yay, I’m glad you like it, Glenn. Most of my friends liked it too. I think I’m going to upload all of my GarageBand music and make it available under a Creative Commons license from my blog.
Can’t wait to find out how you manage two Macs :-)
#22
Smaran → smarandayal.com
@ Josh: To continue our Pixadex/CandyBar discussion, I just downloaded Pixadex and read the About Pixadex file.
It is not meant to replace or compete with CandyBar, it works hand-in-hand with it. Pixadex organises your icons in an iPhoto-like way. It does not actually apply icons to apps/drives/system folders for you.
#23
Glenn Wolsey → www.glennwolsey.com
@ Indraneel
I like to make music with beats, but dont really get much time to, nor have much skill ;-)
#24
Smaran → smarandayal.com
Hey Glenn,
Have you seen David Lanham’s other Agua icon sets?
Agua Apps Vol. 1
Agua Extras vol. 1
#25
NickBobYou’ll got a broken link there sir, on the “How Does Your Mac Look?”. Good post, BTW.
#26
yannic → yannicwalter.de
Is that UNO?
Are you recognizing any performance loss with UNO?
#27
Smaran → smarandayal.com
Yannic, UNO isn’t an application that runs in the background. You open the app once, change your window theme and close it. It just swaps the files, like CandyBar does with icons.
It would work fine on your Mac mini.
#28
Josh → maconlyreview.wordpress.com
@ Smaran
I’m going to download it tonight after finishing off a couple of essays. CandyBar was an impulse buy, and I think an application like Pixadex is just more useful. However if I like the download then I can see me buying Pixadex and using them both together.
#29
Smaran → smarandayal.com
Josh, Pixadex is the one I would expect to be an impulse buy for most people. It does nothing but organise your collection of icons, a collection that will become obsolete in January when they all become too small for the new Leopard 500×500 standard.
CandyBar actually seems useful. I use it quite often. In fact, I’m really considering buying it.
#30
Smaran → smarandayal.com
Where’d my comment go? I posted it and it just vanished!
Glenn, could you check Akismet?
#31
App Crazy! | File Organization → appcrazy.com/?p=44
[...] Glenn Wolsey wrote a great article about File Organization and File systems on his blog here. [...]
#32
yannic → yannicwalter.de
@ Smaran: Yeah I know!
But back in the days when I was a Windows User I editet a dll, who (which? don’t know the right word here) allowed you to change the Theme without any additonal programms, too!
After a while my PC got painfully slow…
I will check out Uno. I like the concept of an unified UI :)
#33
Josh → maconlyreview.wordpress.com
I’ve recently installed UNO and I like it, but it persuaded me to move back to Safari because it doesn’t render in Firefox very nice. I can see Apple either purchasing UNO just like it did for Coverflow in iTunes 7 for Mac OS X Leopard, because the brushed metal is really annoying now.
#34
Christian Kuttruff → www.jungfreudlich.de
@Smaran: jungfreudlich is kind of a play on words. “jung” of course means young in english but actually, it was also the name of the famous psychoanalyst C. G. Jung. Freudlich does not mean “friendly” (that would be freuNdlich) but refers to Sigmund Freud ;-) I like them both and therefore called my blog jungfreudlich which also resembles the German word “jungfräulich” which means virginal…
Everything clear? :-)
@Glenn: Could you link my name to my website? That would be great!
#35
Glenn Wolsey → www.glennwolsey.com
Christian, I’ve made it a link for you.
#36
Christian Kuttruff → www.jungfreudlich.de
@Glenn: I´m much obliged! :-)
#37
Smaran → smarandayal.com
@ Christian: Oh okay, I misread ‘Freudlich’! My mistake. I’ve never heard of someone use a name with ‘lich’ as an adjective (in German).
@ Josh: I think it’s weird that you don’t like the brushed metal look. Since it was mentioned here, I installed UNO yesterday and I was reminded of how much I hate it. It was uninstalled and zapped in seconds.
I love the depth of field that the brushed metal look and the default pinstripe aqua look give Mac OS X apps. It’s irreplaceable. The UNO and UNO Shade looks are too Windows-plain and bland for me. It’s these textures that add some sort of alive-ness to OS X.
@ Yannic: I hate the thought of, the look, the feel and everything about a unified UI :-(
#38
Josh → maconlyreview.wordpress.com
@Smaran
I think the reason why I don’t like the brushed metal is because I’m in iTunes, Mail and other apps that have smoothed metal (is that what we can call it?) and I just feel that Brushed Metal feels out of place. If it was all Brushed Metal then fine, I remember the days when I liked it, but with new applications going ’smooth’ it just feels out of place
#39
Smaran → smarandayal.com
Josh,
I think I’ve just grown used to Safari, NewsFire, iChat etc. having the brushed metal look. The same with Mail and its “smoothed metal” look.
I don’t want to change anything. It’s all unique, all good.
#40
Josh → maconlyreview.wordpress.com
@ Smaran
Each to his own ;-) This is war now haha. Lets see what Apple do with their metal look in Leopard. Do you think it will go unified? Or will the brushed metal remain
#41
yannic → yannicwalter.de
Well I installed it. looks very cool. Especially it replaces the ugly firefox layout ( with this separator at the top.)
In my oppinion the Uno look is definately better than brushed metal.
#42
Smaran → smarandayal.com
@ Josh: War, it is! I say it would be a terrible shame if Apple dropped the pinstripe and brushed looks that give the entire interface depth. But honestly I see a lot of applications getting the iTunes 7-like grey-blue interface. Let’s hope others stay the same :-(
@ Yannic: UNO may be worth it if you use Firefox. The separator is horrible! Personally, I prefer Camino. It’s interface doesn’t need any fixing.
#43
Josh → maconlyreview.wordpress.com
Glenn, I must say I think this is my favourite article you’ve done. It’s persuaded me to get rid of the horrible icon set I was using and go with a smoother one, and whilst I was pretty organised anyways, following your examples has helped me. Thanks!
#44
Smaran → smarandayal.com
And finally, after a long wait and days of trying to get myself to organise my folders, I have done so and published a post on my blog (because I can’t showcase screenshots in a comment here).
Tell me what you all think. If possible, leave a comment on my blog.
Data Organisation & File Structures
Let’s play Ping Pong more often, Glenn (read: send trackbacks).
#45
Indraneel → imindraneel.wordpress.com
Hey Glenn, if you feel up to it, you should do a piece on what apps you use, or something to that effect.
#46
Josh → maconlyreview.wordpress.com
Glenn, if you could do a screen capture of your desktop every once in a while that would be great. Even though your on a break from it, maybe upload it to Flickr to keep it from uncluttering the blog?
#47
Glenn Wolsey | New Years Checklist: Digital Clean Up → www.glennwolsey.com/2006/12/30/new-years-checklist-digital-clean-up
[...] Clear up all the clutter on your desktop by filing items to their applicable folder/s. This will give you a clean working space to begin the year with. [...]
#48
Tucker MacDonald → www.tuckermacdonald.com
Very helpful.
#49
EDIT-XTREEM → iappblog.com
Such a smart idea, I think you should post a follow up to this now…
#50
SamAwesome…just found this! this is rather useful! Cheers Glenn!
#51
jackcan you do a video on this but more detailed, apps etc…
a guide through your system!
#52
Bad Mac Habits « the wphj blog → wphj.wordpress.com/2008/02/07/bad-mac-habits
[...] hope I didn’t come across as annoyingly particular (just kidding) in this post, but I see these types of things all the time, and with a very small [...]
#53
Umair AtaIs there anyway we can set an image as our desktop background without having to set the folder which contains that specific image as our picture folder in the system preferences ??? You got my point? As in windows we can right click on the image and set it as our background.