Sorting of files into folders - need an easier way

[ganrad]

Problem: Daily downloads / mail attachments filling up mydocuments folder real fast. 100s by the end of the week.  These have to be sorted into their respective folders by weekend manually. The destination folders are usually multilevel deep in the folder structure. Such a boring and time consuming task

Solution needed:
Some easy method - the more I think about it - I fancy the idea of having an application that will present all destination folders around mydocuments folder in a graphical way (like mindmap) allowing me to just move the files around. Ofcourse, I should be able to click open the files to see the contents if the name is not suggestive of the destination.

Any thoughts?

[CleverCat]

If you want to sort by date this works a treat!

http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=14216.msg160906

[Crush]

Wouldn´t it be better to look for the last used folders than creating a mindmap-like environment where you never can be sure that the position of your folders are the same? I personally don´t like mindmaps - they´re more confusing than helping at fileworks or managing textual structures. MMs are only useful for collecting a huge bulk of text without taking care of finding particular ones very fast.

[ganrad]

Wouldn´t it be better to look for the last used folders than creating a mindmap-like environment where you never can be sure that the position of your folders are the same? I personally don´t like mindmaps - they´re more confusing than helping at fileworks or managing textual structures. MMs are only useful for collecting a huge bulk of text without taking care of finding particular ones very fast.

I meant - not really  a mind map but a mind map kind of structure....
With my documents being the central topic (The sun)
All folders within mydocuments being the planets around the sun (with a plus sign to expand the files and folders within the folder)...
This way - I will have 360deg access to all folders and subfolders...

[Crush]

Not very easy to do... what´s if the destionation folder is far away on another drive (20 Dirs up and on the next drive 20 Dirs down)? Your way is only interesting, if the destination folders are directly around the files you want to move - I see this as a very special case. So you perhaps will move them more around as necessary. Have you ever tried to place 50 or 100 Names around one in the centre? The navigation would be more complicate than working with two explorers.

[cmpm]

You could make shortcuts to all the destination folders.
Put all those in a folder, open and drag and drop on the shortcut from your main dowmload/attachment folder.

Other then that, what email program do you use?
There are attachment sorters for some.

Maybe this would help, not sure....

http://www.ghacks.net/2009/04/12/sort-files-folders-automatically/

[joby_toss]

Try DropIt by Lupo73

Web page: http://www.lupopensuite.com/db/dropit.htm
Description: It is a simple drop target (a floating image on your desktop) that you can drop files onto to quickly position them in folders of your choice. It allow to set a destination folder for each pattern rule defined (also for folders, if feature is actived), to move/copy them and to overwrite/skip/rename duplicates.
Stealth: Yes. (this software is my creation  )
License: Freeware (may be gpl in future)
System Requirements: XP/Vista/Seven (needs to be tested on other versions)

http://www.portablefreeware.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=5441

[joiwind]

You could also try DragTargets

[JavaJones]

This may be an unpopular suggestion, entirely against the workflow you have going here, but I just sort things as I go throughout the week. If I extract an attachment from email, I stick it in a folder before opening it. If I save something from the web, I file it appropriately before doing anything with it. It seems pretty efficient to do it this way, particularly since it allows me to remember the exact context and use that as part of the sort criteria. For example I may have downloaded a driver for a particular graphics card, and if I come to it later I'll see it as "Graphics card driver" and put it in "Drivers", but in reality when I downloaded it, it was for a friend's computer, and I have a separate folder which I call "Work" with subfolder "Clients" where I keep files specifically for use with other people's computers. If I sort later, I may not remember that context.

Anyway that's just my method. Sorting all at once may be more efficient in theory, but in practice you do run into the issues you mention above.

- Oshyan