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date 2009-11-27
tags index
permalink how-i-organize-my-dropbox.html
title How I organize my Dropbox

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Gmail encourages users to "search not sort". I do that. Email works great for search. For files though, sorting is often better.

I have well over 20GB of files synced onto my Dropbox. The rest of my computer is spotless(I use Windows 7 and do a fresh install every 30-60 days). But the Dropbox can get cluttered. I take a simple approach that is a hybrid of search and sort. Here's how to do it:

Put files into 2 sections:

 -Put commonly accessed folders in the root directory.
 -Put everything else in a "Search" directory, which is in the Dropbox root directory.

- Create a folder in your root Dropbox directory named "Search". Plop anything in here.
- Keep your most common folders in the root Dropbox directory. Sort these ones.
- Every few weeks, move any rarely used files and folders into the "Search" directory. Bring any commonly used files and folders back out to the root Dropbox directory.

# End Result

Here's what the end result may look like:

code
 -My Dropbox
 --Music
 --Photos
 --Blog
 --eBooks
 --Company Docs
 --Search

The first directories are the ones you access a lot and are well sorted and maintained. The last directory is a mess of random files and folders that you've collected. You can browse through it, but it's easier to just run a search on it when you need something.

This a hybrid of search and sort.

#  Notes

- 1. All of my coding work is done in my cygwin home directory and then pushed to github. These are the only files that I don't store in Dropbox, but I push them frequently so don't worry much about losing them.

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