How do you sort your computer files?

[aozgolo]

I'm a digital hoarder, I have a cumulative total of 7.5 Terabytes of space between my primary hard drive and 4 external drives plugged into my computer. I have games, movies, tv shows, music, anime (a whole drive dedicated to it), porn, pictures, ebooks, and the list goes on and on. The problem is that I've nearly filled up all my drives except my primary internal HDD (which I don't store things in and only use for programs).

I try to go through and sort my content but I inevitably run into problems trying to figure out the best way to sort things and I easily get sidetracked by looking at something I was intending to sort and becoming totally distracted to the point that I barely free up any room.

I could always buy another external hard drive but to me that seems a bad solution, I'm too much of a digital packrat and find it hard to get rid of things but I know I have lots of things to get rid of.

Any advice on how to sort out all these files and clear up some major room? I have thousands of video files, and hundreds of thousands of image files and they tend to be dumped en masse into giant folders with no rhyme nor reason to them. I need an efficient and hopefully quick way to stay on task and sort out my files from the things I want and the things I don't.

 

[OneCatch]

I'm a digital hoarder, I have a cumulative total of 7.5 Terabytes of space between my primary hard drive and 4 external drives plugged into my computer. I have games, movies, tv shows, music, anime (a whole drive dedicated to it), porn, pictures, ebooks, and the list goes on and on. The problem is that I've nearly filled up all my drives except my primary internal HDD (which I don't store things in and only use for programs).

I try to go through and sort my content but I inevitably run into problems trying to figure out the best way to sort things and I easily get sidetracked by looking at something I was intending to sort and becoming totally distracted to the point that I barely free up any room.

I could always buy another external hard drive but to me that seems a bad solution, I'm too much of a digital packrat and find it hard to get rid of things but I know I have lots of things to get rid of.

Any advice on how to sort out all these files and clear up some major room? I have thousands of video files, and hundreds of thousands of image files and they tend to be dumped en masse into giant folders with no rhyme nor reason to them. I need an efficient and hopefully quick way to stay on task and sort out my files from the things I want and the things I don't.

I find it's easiest to sort stuff into vague folders first, and work your way down. Segregating stuff by file type can really help, particularly for media (plus you can do it by just sorting by format in Windows Explorer). In a pinch you can also sort by file size to separate films from TV shows in most cases (assuming the TV show has shorter runtime).

I'd recommend having a few very broad categories (gaming, media, personal stuff, documents, etc). Get stuff into those to start with, then sort them into subfolders out one by one.

My layout at home is something like this:

Computer Stuff
a)Utility programs, old drivers, dosbox, emulators, that kind of thing
b)Passwords, driver info, etc (encrypted)

Work

Media
a)Film & TV
b)Ebooks
c)Music
d)Pictures and Photos

Games
a)Program Files
b)Saves
c)Managers, launchers, mod managers, mods
d)notes, account info for steam, origin, individual games (encrypted)

Misc - Screensavers, backgrounds, codes for redeeming, notes - stuff I need but isn't categorisable

Crap - gifs, pics that have made me laugh, screencaps, stuff that I don't really need.

EDIT: You can also pin folders to the taskbar in Win 7 and 8 - it might be easier to have major categories on the taskbar and then you can just drag and drop stuff into them quickly.

 

[sanquin]

I usually start with several basic folders. Games, music, films, photo's, downloads, random personal stuff, basic programs for the PC and misc programs. All main folders directly on my hard drive. After that I start with sub divisions. For music I first make maps for band/artist name, then in those if needed, by music disk or year. For photo's I make sub folders for when I took said photo's.

In short, folders of main sections, with further sub folders to make searching faster.

On my desktop I have folder shortcuts for downloads and music, for instance. I have all gaming icons organized in one area, though if I get too many I'll make a folder for them and pin it to the task bar. In another section on the desktop I place hard disk shortcuts, trash bin and my computer.

As for freeing up space. No one can help you with that. You have to decide for yourself what you're comfortable getting rid of. Think movies you haven't watched in ages, or music you hardly listen to any more, or games that you don't feel you can get around to for another two months or longer. Or ones that you hardly play any more.