Organize Your Life With A Download Folder Structure
We all want to be organized. We all say we are going to be, we do our best for a few weeks or months, and then it’s back to the same habit of “ah whatever i’ll just throw it in the downloads folder with everything else”.
This is a mistake most of us make.
In the modern computer-based world, downloads are a part of everyday life. Working as an engineer, I am consistently downloading files via Slack, Chrome, or some other application. The files have no consistency, and often differ in extension or type.
And let’s be honest, the sort by name, date, or size methods only do so much.
About a year ago, while working on three different contract jobs, I began to face a daily problem of multiple download sources. One project would send files to me via email, while the others would send me files from Slack or a Dropbox download in the browser. Within a matter of hours I found myself lost in a forest of file names like WB_2020_04_01_1080x1080.mp4. With only a few of these files, it would not have been an issue, but after downloading hundreds over the course of a few weeks I began to seek a better form of organization.
The obvious becomes apparent…
After a little bit of digging through each of my commonly used applications, I began to notice something that should have been obvious to me but wasn’t; I could specify where my downloads were going. In hindsight, this is an extremely obvious feature that has been around for since the early stages the computer. However to me, as someone who constantly is in and out of multiple applications within a span of 15 seconds, I never took the time to really think about how I could pair this feature with my daily development workflow.
Download Folder Structure
This step could be either very messy, or extremely simple, depending on how many downloads you have in your default folder.
By default, your Downloads folder will be the main location for most applications to drop files into.
If you have a ton of items already in the Downloads folder, I suggest creating an “Old Downloads” folder and move everything over there, to make it easier to separate any new files after we finish organizing. This is much faster than going item-by-item and organizing manually.
For myself, I have 6 main sources of downloads, an obvious few are used more than others.
My folders (used as an example):
- Chrome Downloads (for anything coming from the browser)
- Slack Downloads (usually work related, VERY helpful for heavy Slack users)
- Mail Downloads (quickly finding attachments here is very easy)
- Screenshots (possibly my most useful)
- Gifs(similar to Screenshots)
- Message Downloads (photos, videos, notes, etc.)
By creating the above folders, I am now able to easily find specific files and downloads from 6 different sources, and always know where it will be placed. It honestly makes a HUGE different in my day to day development.
Most applications you use will allow you to select the folder you want your downloads to be sent and stored. I will give a quick walkthrough for my most used, down below.
Google Chrome
Google Chrome, or whichever web browser you are using, will most likely be the largest source of downloads for you. So this one is very important! Here is how you do this:
- Click the 3 dots on the very right of your Chrome toolbar. This will open up the menu.
- Select Settings, and wait for your settings to open in another tab.
- Once your settings tab has opened, scroll to the bottom of your browser window, and “Advanced”. This will be at the very bottom, with an arrow next to it.
- After clicking Advanced, you will be shown a few more setting categories, but the one we are looking for is Downloads.
- Click the Change button to open the selection window, and locate and select your Chrome Downloads folder we made earlier.
- Done! Now, every download receive while in Chrome will be stored and nicely tucked away within the folder you made.
Slack
Not everyone uses Slack, but most people I know and work with are tied to this application daily.
Lucky for us, modifying the downloads folder within Slack is pretty quick.
- When the Slack application is open and focused (meaning the most recently clicked or used application), head up to the menu bar at the top of your screen (I am on Mac).
- Click Slack, and then select Preferences like the screenshot above
- Within preferences, you will again select Advanced
- Change the download location to your Slack Downloads folder
- Done!
Every Slack download will now be placed in the Slack Downloads folder by default.
Conclusion
This should have been obvious to me from the start, but hopefully I can help you guys make this same improvement a bit quicker than I did! This will honestly revolutionize your productivity and organization more than you know.
If you need help or would like instructions on how to make this same adjustment on other applications, please let me know or comment and I will add it to the article :)
