I stumbled on this system several years ago and found it useful as inspiration for organizing my external storage.
My top level categories are `inbox` (stuff that isn't sorted yet), `Media` (stuff that other people made), and `Vault` (stuff that I made).
`Media` contains `Audiobooks`, `Books`, `Courses`, `Films`, `TV`, `Music`, and `Broadway.
`Vault` contains `Backups`, `Projects`, `Audio`, Video`, and `Photos`.
Anything one layer deeper is either a file of the type described by the parent folder name or a folder containing related files (ex: `Video/2023-06-12 makers.dev 119` is a folder containing the raw recordings and processed end video and audio for my podcast).
I've got about 10TB and tens of millions of files organized in this system. It works better than anything else I've tried.
I do something similar. Where is always seems to fall apart is with things I collaborate on with others. Sometimes, joint projects get their own home (i.e., they become an organization, or at least get their own public repository of some sort). So in addition to "inbox" "media" and "private" (my version of "vault") I've also got a "shared" category.
It's still not perfect, because ultimately the subcategories of "shared" need to actually be accessible, or mirrored, or it's not actually true. And sometimes, a project goes into "shared" aspirationally, even if I have no collaborators yet, as a subtle reminder that I might share it someday, so I don't want to put anything in that folder that I'm not comfortable being public or semi-public.
My top level categories are `inbox` (stuff that isn't sorted yet), `Media` (stuff that other people made), and `Vault` (stuff that I made).
`Media` contains `Audiobooks`, `Books`, `Courses`, `Films`, `TV`, `Music`, and `Broadway.
`Vault` contains `Backups`, `Projects`, `Audio`, Video`, and `Photos`.
Anything one layer deeper is either a file of the type described by the parent folder name or a folder containing related files (ex: `Video/2023-06-12 makers.dev 119` is a folder containing the raw recordings and processed end video and audio for my podcast).
I've got about 10TB and tens of millions of files organized in this system. It works better than anything else I've tried.