[DigitalEl]

Now that Spotlight indexes our drives and makes finding stuff a snap, whether by keyword, metadata or filename, how many of you have stopped being so anal about folder structure?

For example, in my Documents folder, I have additional folders for "Personal Finance," "Correspondence," "Work Related" and so on. Since Spotlight is a quicker way to find a file than digging through folders in the Finder, is it time to ditch the sub-folders and just throw all document files into the Documents folder?

I've considered taking a baby-step towards this path, starting with Mail. Instead of "Family," "Friends," "Work" and so forth, I'd just have one big Inbox and one big Sent file. Anything that needed isolating could be done with Smart Folders and/or Flags.

Same with Photos. I have "Kids & Family," "Rendered & PhotoReal," etc... Should all of these just be lumped in the Pictures folder with no thought to organization, leaving it up to Spotlight to fetch what I need, when I need it?

Discuss.

[Chuckit]

I find there is often not enough metadata on photos to make this practical.

[rehoot]

If spotlight can use face recognition to determine which pictures are your kids versus your drinking buddies, then go for it. Otherwise you might have to memorize all of your file names or make special file names or file comments for each file.

I'll give you an example from my previous job. I would receive data files from many different people. I would put each file in a folder related to the project, and that folder might be nested two or three levels deep. I could rename all the files to add the project name, but then it becomes a problem when the file is part of an automation process that I or the other person uses, plus it is quicker to associate lots of files by putting them in the same directory than it is to rename each one or add special comments in Finder.

I am now a student and I use folders to group my assignemnts for classes by course number (like PSY1234) and week number, and other folders to store academic journals either by journal name or topic. If I didn't group my assignments using folders, I would have to either change the names to add course name and week to everything or otherwise add file comments somewhere.

[DigitalEl]

Good points, especially about the pictures. I just use date/time (e.g. 050807 0914) for filenames, so right there that wouldn't work. I'm just thinking out loud. Still may try the experiment with Mail. I can always use Rules to put everything back in folders if I don't like it.

I'm just looking for shortcuts to stop "managing" stuff.

I used to manually manage my Music folder. I held onto that for way too long. Now that iTunes does it automagically, I wonder what the hell I was holding onto. Just lookin' for similar time-savers.

[msuper69]

iPhoto makes it easy to organize photos and movies. Make some keywords, select and drag your photos onto the appropriate keywords. Smart Albums work similarly with more complex logic available.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by msuper69 

iPhoto makes it easy to organize photos and movies. Wait five years for iPhoto to start up, make some keywords, select and drag your photos onto the appropriate keywords. Smart Albums work similarly with more waiting available.

Fixed!

[msuper69]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

Fixed!

Starts up fast enough for me with a few thousand photos.

Besides, I don't quit iPhoto (or most of my most-used apps) very often so start up time doesn't concern me.

[philm]

I have certainly done this now for Mail.app. I used to painstakingly sort all my incoming mail into little folders. Now I just have a simple keystroke to send the message into 'Archive' and I just use the search/Spotlight functionality to dig out old messages. Very efficient.

[mdc]

My Documents folder is organized into sub folders for Work and Personal stuff.
I keyword all my photos on location (continent) and person in the photo and I create albums for significant events. Going to another country, theme park, weddings, birthdays.
Mail has everything in one inbox and sent items with smart folders for friends and family.

[Goldfinger]

I use spotlight to find my emails. I never sorted my email to be honest so nothing new here. I still use a folder structure for my files. It's quicker for me than spotlight actually. For pics I use Aperture and unfortunately that doesn't work with spotlight.

All in all I rarely use spotlight. I know where my stuff is.

I AM thinking of redesigning my folder structure and integrating Adobe Bridge into my workflow for all my pics, PSDs, InDesigns and other files that are not stored in Aperture.

[ghporter]

I'm completely dependent on structure. I haven't even run Spotlight. I put things where I can find them in the first place, so I don't generally have to search for them.

[jasong]

I still have folders because they are already there, but I find Spotlight to be effective enough at finding things that I rarely navigate the Finder anymore. The only real exception is for applications, but even then I am starting to find myself using Spotlight more and more as a launcher. It might be faster to use my known folder hierarchy (and on my TiBook it usually is), but it is far easier to use Spotlight. Maybe in 2000 years I'll want the 1 hour lost using Spotlight in that timeframe back, but probably not, easier is better in my book.

If Apple would add Keywording a la iPhoto systemwide* I would probably never manage a file again.

* Well, the iPhoto keyword interface isn't so hot, but the theory is spot on