Tips to manage your files better

Use these tips to help with organizing your computer files.

1. Use Documents. For many reasons, it's smart to take advantage of the Documents feature, which is called Documents. To open Documents click Start, and then click Documents to discover an easy way to store your personal documents.
   In the Documents feature is actually a virtual library. By default, the Documents library includes your My Documents or Documents folder and the Public Documents folder. You can customize the Documents library to group files and folders from any location on your computer—without actually moving them. Or you can build your own libraries to easily organize your files.
   

   
   
2. Adopt consistent methods for file and folder naming. When learning how to manage files and folders, it is important that you develop a naming scheme for the kinds of files you create most often and then stick to it. To change an existing file or folder name, right-click the name in the folder structure. ClickRename, and then type the new name.
3. Keep names short. Even though you can use long file names in Windows, you should not necessarily do so. Long file names can be harder to read.
   
   
   
4. Separate ongoing and completed work. To keep the Documents folder from becoming too unwieldy, use it only for files you're actively working on. As a result, you can reduce the number of files you need to search through and the amount of data you need to back up. Every month or so, move the files you're no longer working on to a different folder or location, such as a folder on your desktop, a special archive folder, a flash drive, an external hard disk drive, or even a CD.
5. Store like with like. Restricting folders to a single document type makes it easier for you to find files. For example, with all of your graphics in a single folder—or in a single library—it's easy to use the slide show feature in Windows Explorer to find the right picture for your newsletter. You can also use libraries to group files together for easier searching without moving them into the same place.
6. Avoid large folder structures. If you need to put so many subfolders in a folder that you can't see all of them at a glance, consider creating an alphabetic menu.