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BIF
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Do you use the Windows "Documents" folder?

Wed Jul 19, 2017 11:42 pm

Hello:

I'm struggling with hard drive clutter. I think part of my problem is that over the years, I have not forced myself to come to grips with Windows "Libraries" or even just come up with a consistent way of storing my documents. Ever since the days of "My Documents", I've always sort of forged my own path. And then when "Libraries" came out, I kind of ignored them, too.

But my brilliance really hasn't worked well for me in all these years, and now I find it difficult to find things on two different computers and all my iDevices. Oh, and forget it if I want to create a document on my desktop computer and open it later on my laptop!

And that's the reason for this. I want to put most of my stuff into a cloud. Whether it's a commercial solution or something I build myself will just have to be figured out later. Right now I just want to tame the paperless beast that I have on my hands.

For the questions below, please consider "Libraries" to be the actual feature by that name that came with Windows 7 and later.

Please consider "Documents" (with a capital D) to refer to the special Windows folder by that name, and please consider "documents" (with a lowercase d) to include the files that you might open in an application, such as an office document, a website "source code" file or file structure, a photo or video edit session (including any sidecar files created by the application), music file projects (including audio tracks of your amazing Duet for Uke and Piano), user-created photos/videos, or artwork (both "source" files and finished renders).

In preparation to "cloudify" my documents, I ask you Windows users:

  1. Do you use the Windows Documents folder, have you set up Libraries of your own, or have you found a better way to organize your document files on Windows?
  2. Do you do it the same way on your desktop and laptop computers? Please clarify.
  3. Does your way work well for a cloud solution such as Dropbox or iCloud?

Thanks in advance!
 
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Re: Do you use the Windows "Documents" folder?

Thu Jul 20, 2017 3:48 am

Never used %homepath%\documents. It's just a default dumping grounds for many programs, so it's a sure place for uncontrollable mess.
I also see it as a potential security risk.

Libraries are a higher level concept I see no reason for. I do my own sub-directory divisions, and that don't rely on special OS features.

I generally store stuff in some root level directory, usually not on the boot drive. Say d:\docs\, or whatever.
Most things would go under it, but certain things get their own root-level directory. E.g., music might be d:\mus\.

There's no difference in how I do it on different computers.

I don't use online storage. I don't think it matters in this regard; you can probably just define the synced directories.
Last edited by meerkt on Thu Jul 20, 2017 6:47 am, edited 2 times in total.
 
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Re: Do you use the Windows "Documents" folder?

Thu Jul 20, 2017 4:11 am

I myself do not use the My Documents library for storing documents. Rather, I follow a strict C:\home\<username> (or C:\home\root for admin) convention.

In the <username> subfolder I will have subfolders doc (for documents), img (for images), wav (for music files), mpg (for movie files) and bin (for executable/zipped files).
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Re: Do you use the Windows "Documents" folder?

Thu Jul 20, 2017 4:31 am

For people using Dropbox or Google Drive I generally create a "Documents" (and Pictures etc) folder in their Dropbox/Drive folder and then make that folder the default save location for its corresponding library. I usually remove all other locations from the Libraries as well but that's only because most of the people I deal with don't seem to be able to understand Libraries.

Setup all your computers the same and everything is magically synced between all your devices.

With all these syncing things you have to be careful not to edit the same document in two places at once.

Apparently Google Drive will start letting you nominate any folder on your PC for syncing (rather than just a single Drive folder) so this kind of thing will only be necessary with Dropbox.
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Re: Do you use the Windows "Documents" folder?

Thu Jul 20, 2017 5:13 am

Libraries are one of the very few real upgrades in Win 7 UI, compared to XP. You can add any number of folders to each library, or remove the existing ones. You can add new libraries too. I use them as a very customizable system of shortcuts that are always at hand when I open an Exprorer window or an Open or Save as... window in an application.
 
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Re: Do you use the Windows "Documents" folder?

Thu Jul 20, 2017 5:31 am

Don't use libraries or any of the "special" folders. I put things where I want them, not where Windows wants them. It's a holdover from the MS-DOS days.
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Re: Do you use the Windows "Documents" folder?

Thu Jul 20, 2017 5:34 am

I have my own directory structure... though I do use the downloads folder. Its the same for me on Linux.
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Re: Do you use the Windows "Documents" folder?

Thu Jul 20, 2017 5:35 am

ultima_trev wrote:
I myself do not use the My Documents library for storing documents. Rather, I follow a strict C:\home\<username> (or C:\home\root for admin) convention.

In the <username> subfolder I will have subfolders doc (for documents), img (for images), wav (for music files), mpg (for movie files) and bin (for executable/zipped files).


Then you'll be pleased to know Windows actually does it almost exactly the same way you do:

"Libraries" = C:\users\username\
"My Documents" = C:\users\username\My Documents
"Pictures" = C:\users\username\Pictures
"Music" = C:\users\username\Music

etc etc.
 
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Re: Do you use the Windows "Documents" folder?

Thu Jul 20, 2017 5:50 am

jihadjoe wrote:
Then you'll be pleased to know Windows actually does it almost exactly the same way you do.

Whereas my goal is to keep the Windows home folders to the smallest size possible and keep ALL data on a separate drive. It speeds imaging backups of the OS drive and makes data backups a simple drag/drop affair.
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Re: Do you use the Windows "Documents" folder?

Thu Jul 20, 2017 6:09 am

Ned, you should spend the 2 easy minutes that it takes to relocate the libraries that you want. You can choose which libraries go on which drive and in which directory and Windows will move the files for you.
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Re: Do you use the Windows "Documents" folder?

Thu Jul 20, 2017 7:57 am

jihadjoe wrote:
Then you'll be pleased to know Windows actually does it almost exactly the same way you do:
"Libraries" = C:\users\username\
"My Documents" = C:\users\username\My Documents
"Pictures" = C:\users\username\Pictures
"Music" = C:\users\username\Music

My advice is to stop using those folders in W10 unless you like Microsoft constantly screwing with your media. Despite turning off everything possible, a few days into using Windows 10 I started getting popups saying "Hey! We randomly created some photo albums from your pictures!! We didn't ask before doing it, and there's no way to turn it off!!" Left to its own devices, the software would probably start uploading to OneDrive in a public share, and maybe start editing/rearranging the originals. Hell no.

Then you've got Groove constantly re-indexing the Music folder and trying to mess with metadata. Again....hell no.
 
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Re: Do you use the Windows "Documents" folder?

Thu Jul 20, 2017 8:14 am

ultima_trev wrote:
In the <username> subfolder I will have subfolders doc (for documents), img (for images), wav (for music files), mpg (for movie files) and bin (for executable/zipped files).

I'm quite surprised at how many people commenting so far like to "reinvent the wheel". Windows already creates all those folders for you (including the appropriate shortcuts to them), why bother? Ultimately, it's not that hard to link the standard library shortcuts to a different folder (most of us do this when we set up our SSD+hdd systems) but I've found the default folders to work just fine (although I've obviously moved them to my hdd). Are there some clutter items that Windows creates? Sure. Savegames, scans, my scans, etc etc but I have sub-folders in places like My Documents, My Images, My Movies etc to further organize them. If you're not organizing folders, and instead just dumping hundreds of individual files in a single folder, then it really doesn't matter if you're using the default Windows folders or creating your own.
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Re: Do you use the Windows "Documents" folder?

Thu Jul 20, 2017 8:27 am

1) Windows' own folders and libraries are an abomination that change every few versions of Windows and are constantly auto-polluted by applications without your consent.
2) Yes. I file stuff in a simple-yet-effective structure regardless of what device I'm using.
3) Absolutely. The key for me is that I have been running a 'local cloud' with one single presented storage volume for all shared devices for at least a decade already.

What you want to do does not sound mad or wrong. I would argue that the way Microsoft want people to do things is ass-backwards in many ways and very counter-intuitive.
If you don't use any of the nasty Metro-style apps in windows, your files, search index and folder preferences are largely left untouched. It's not as if these rammed-down-your-throat apps like "Films and TV" or "Groove Music" are particulary good examples in their genre either, so I have no regrets in badmouthing them and recommending everyone hard-uninstalls them from their OS. They truly have a mind of their own and their automatic decisions are as asinine they are unwelcome and uncalled for.
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Re: Do you use the Windows "Documents" folder?

Thu Jul 20, 2017 8:38 am

All of my media (pictures, movies, music) lives on my WHS2011 VM while documents are stored in my Onedrive folder (which I've put on a separate drive if available) . I've found Onedrive to be a great solution for keeping things synced between machines at home and work with very little conflicts to resolve and also available on iOS devices. If you're looking to put EVERYTHING in the cloud, you're going to need more than the free option for Onedrive (or really any of the cloud services; dropbox, google drive, box, etc.) but if you get Office 365 you get 1TB or up to 5TB and office for 9.99 a month or $99 a year.
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Re: Do you use the Windows "Documents" folder?

Thu Jul 20, 2017 8:44 am

I use libraries because I use File History (and backing up libraries is dead simple that way) in addition to imaging the system drive with Macrium Reflect. It's never in the default location because I want my SSD to have as much space for applications as possible, but libraries are very helpful.
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Re: Do you use the Windows "Documents" folder?

Thu Jul 20, 2017 9:13 am

Always. But I have retained my own directory structure, too.

My Documents - I use the Windows default, and it is fine. I compress and back them up to dropbox every 6 months or so. I don't do much here, really.
My Videos - I have the Library include the directory I use (D:\Movies), and ignore the C:\ default - my SSD doesn't have that sort of room.
My music - I don't listen to music on my computer. Directory is not included in the Library
Downloads - absolutely the most useful one for me. I include my D:\Downloads directory also.
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Re: Do you use the Windows "Documents" folder?

Thu Jul 20, 2017 10:26 am

BIF wrote:

[*]Do you use the Windows Documents folder, have you set up Libraries of your own, or have you found a better way to organize your document files on Windows?

[*]Do you do it the same way on your desktop and laptop computers? Please clarify.

[*]Does your way work well for a cloud solution such as Dropbox or iCloud?[/list]

Thanks in advance!


1) Yes, No, somewhat. I use the same file structure that windows initially set up. However I move them to a HDD which is then sync'd to the cloud and my personal on-prem 'cloud'.

2) No for laptops I leave be and only have it sync with the cloud

3) absolutely yes.
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Re: Do you use the Windows "Documents" folder?

Thu Jul 20, 2017 10:44 am

Captain Ned wrote:
jihadjoe wrote:
Then you'll be pleased to know Windows actually does it almost exactly the same way you do.

Whereas my goal is to keep the Windows home folders to the smallest size possible and keep ALL data on a separate drive. It speeds imaging backups of the OS drive and makes data backups a simple drag/drop affair.
Same here, and I like to keep my program installs on a separate drive also.
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Re: Do you use the Windows "Documents" folder?

Thu Jul 20, 2017 11:02 am

cheesyking wrote:
For people using Dropbox or Google Drive I generally create a "Documents" (and Pictures etc) folder in their Dropbox/Drive folder and then make that folder the default save location for its corresponding library. I usually remove all other locations from the Libraries as well but that's only because most of the people I deal with don't seem to be able to understand Libraries.

Setup all your computers the same and everything is magically synced between all your devices.

With all these syncing things you have to be careful not to edit the same document in two places at once.

Apparently Google Drive will start letting you nominate any folder on your PC for syncing (rather than just a single Drive folder) so this kind of thing will only be necessary with Dropbox.


Yikes. You must either have very large drives on all those computers, or not very much data. "Syncing my Home drive everywhere" would be a ~1 terabyte proposition.
 
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Re: Do you use the Windows "Documents" folder?

Thu Jul 20, 2017 11:11 am

JustAnEngineer wrote:
Ned, you should spend the 2 easy minutes that it takes to relocate the libraries that you want. You can choose which libraries go on which drive and in which directory and Windows will move the files for you.


it doesn't always behave and some programs will ignore the different locations.
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Re: Do you use the Windows "Documents" folder?

Thu Jul 20, 2017 11:12 am

I don't use Windows any more, but I do use the Documents folder and Desktop on Linux. Documents folder is treated as temporary staging area for work in progress. Desktop is used similarly but also has folders and/or shortcuts to frequently accessed stuff. Files which are to be kept longer term are put in an appropriately named subdirectory under my home directory.

Downloads get left in the Downloads directory (filed in an appropriately named subdirectory), except for digital music downloads, which have their own Music Downloads directory (with subdirectories for artist and album under that).

I do essentially the same thing regardless of whether it is a desktop or laptop. The underlying storage structure is different however. On the desktop I run an SSD OS drive, and a pair of HDDs (RAID-1) for my home directory. For laptop, it's just a single SSD for everything (but everything appears logically the same from the user's perspective; the /home directory just isn't a mount point for a different volume).

I don't use a Cloud backup service, and have limited interactions with Dropbox.
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Re: Do you use the Windows "Documents" folder?

Thu Jul 20, 2017 11:30 am

Oh, and regarding the "declutter" aspect, here's what I've been doing for a while now for my desktop:

When I upgrade to a new version of Linux (every 2-3 years), I always do a clean install to different hardware instead of an in-place upgrade. Using trailing edge gear makes this affordable; FWIW I'm still on the AM3+ platform (FX-8350).

Contents of old home directory (from the system I'm upgrading from) gets put in a subdirectory on the new system. E.g., the system name of my previous desktop was "eisbock", so there's now a "from-eisbock" subdirectory in my home directory on the current system. After cutting over to the new system, as I need stuff from the old system those directories get dragged back to the top level of my home directory on the new system.

Whatever's still left in the "from-xxx" subdirectory (i.e. I haven't touched it in 2-3 years) the next time I upgrade gets moved to the file server in the crawlspace (plus I have backups on external HDDs if the file server should fail). So the stuff from 2 systems back is still accessible, but isn't taking up space on the new build.
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Re: Do you use the Windows "Documents" folder?

Thu Jul 20, 2017 11:53 am

lilbuddhaman wrote:
JustAnEngineer wrote:
Ned, you should spend the 2 easy minutes that it takes to relocate the libraries that you want. You can choose which libraries go on which drive and in which directory and Windows will move the files for you.


it doesn't always behave and some programs will ignore the different locations.


For the obnoxious and offending software that's exactly what symlink or mklink was created for!
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Re: Do you use the Windows "Documents" folder?

Thu Jul 20, 2017 12:06 pm

1) I really dislike the document folder. Not just because I am always having to edit permissions but also because devs have all gone insane and think it's a good idea to scatter files all over the place in there. Why keeping files for a program inside that program's directory became something nobody wants to do is beyond me. Same with registry settings. Why on earth would you want to store program critical information in the registry instead of a file in the program directory? I am starting to rant now though so I will move on...

2) I generally do things the same way regardless of platform, minus my phone since doing anything on there is a pain. Stuff any active work on the desktop, keep important files in drive(s)\!stuff or whatever. Something with a ! at the start.

3) If I want my stuff to be cloud friendly I keep it in drive\FTP\ so I can access it through there.
 
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Re: Do you use the Windows "Documents" folder?

Thu Jul 20, 2017 12:41 pm

I normally try to keep all my user stuff in my user folder, and usually use the built-in folders (Documents, Pictures, Downloads) out of convenience, as every application under the sun tries to write there by default. Plus I generally try to only back up the C:\Users\$user directory which is usually enough to bring back the computer after a failure of the Windows boot drive.

I usually create extra folders inside the $user directory, but I try fairly hard to keep everything inside there that isn't bulk data (like multimedia, VM/ISO images, and large project files), which usually lives on another drive entirely.
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Re: Do you use the Windows "Documents" folder?

Thu Jul 20, 2017 2:51 pm

odizzido wrote:
devs have all gone insane and think it's a good idea to scatter files all over the place in there. Why keeping files for a program inside that program's directory became something nobody wants to do is beyond me.


I also much prefer the idea of keeping all of a programs settings in the program directory, but the reason stuff became "scattered to the wind" was not entirely the dev's fault - as Windows matured, so did security vulnerabilities and mixing settings from different users with different permissions in the same folder is a big no-no.

It could still be a hell of lot less random and messy than it is though.
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Re: Do you use the Windows "Documents" folder?

Thu Jul 20, 2017 3:06 pm

Chrispy_ wrote:
odizzido wrote:
devs have all gone insane and think it's a good idea to scatter files all over the place in there. Why keeping files for a program inside that program's directory became something nobody wants to do is beyond me.

I also much prefer the idea of keeping all of a programs settings in the program directory, but the reason stuff became "scattered to the wind" was not entirely the dev's fault - as Windows matured, so did security vulnerabilities and mixing settings from different users with different permissions in the same folder is a big no-no.

It could still be a hell of lot less random and messy than it is though.

I've never been a fan of the whole registry idea either, at least for per-user settings. For system level settings it's OK; but IMO all user settings should be stored under the user's home directory somewhere. Makes it trivially easy to carry those settings across to another system if desired, without the need for special tools, AD, or roaming profiles.
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Re: Do you use the Windows "Documents" folder?

Thu Jul 20, 2017 7:28 pm

tanker27 wrote:
lilbuddhaman wrote:
JustAnEngineer wrote:
Ned, you should spend the 2 easy minutes that it takes to relocate the libraries that you want. You can choose which libraries go on which drive and in which directory and Windows will move the files for you.
it doesn't always behave and some programs will ignore the different locations.
For the obnoxious and offending software that's exactly what symlink or mklink was created for!
If you absolutely must use some abominably written software, you can add both locations to your library. My low-effort solution for things that I want to group together is to drop a shortcut into the library. It's not exactly the same as having it stored there, but it means that I can find what I'm looking for.
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Re: Do you use the Windows "Documents" folder?

Thu Jul 20, 2017 11:35 pm

I've had multiple hard drives for a long time that I take with me through upgrades/re-installs/etc so I never really tried to use the Documents/Libraries stuff either. I know you can link them to other drives/folders but why bother in the first place? I use Crashplan for cloud backup though which lets you select specific folders, specific files, or entire drives to sync to their cloud storage. It's a bit puzzling to me that Google Drive still doesn't allow that. It's a very basic core functionality that every backup solution should have. I'd expect something like that from Apple not Google.

I also make an image/clone of my OS/SSD about once a month that I only backup locally to a HDD (bandwidth limitations), just to keep my program configurations/settings if something were to go wrong with that drive. Almost nothing gets saved to the "Documents" folder though other than a few saved games and a couple other random programs that use it for config files.
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BIF
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Re: Do you use the Windows "Documents" folder?

Fri Jul 21, 2017 12:06 am

I should clarify, my use of "cloud" in this thread will be for file syncing only and not for backup. I'll use Macrium to back up the "master" folder contents.

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