Computer Document Naming Conventions Best Practices

 Here are some ideas for general naming conventions for common documents you might collect or create on your personal computer. 

The general purpose of naming conventions is to be able to more easily find a file again just by looking at its title. A secondary but useful purpose is to provide a consistent name pattern for repetitive files that are more useful if they are ordered alphabetically. This is especially important if you are working in a shared space such as a shared folder on a home network, a Dropbox folder, a shared Microsoft OneDrive or Google MyDrive folder, or a corporate shared drive. 

Basic principles: 

• Name all files consistently. Think long term. Your files could stick around for years. 
• Attributes should be used to provide the desired alphabetical sort order. 
• The file name should provide sufficient context outside of its folder or location.
• File names should be quickly readable. Use separators such as spaces or dashes between attributes.
• Capital letters are for cosmetic looks only. File names are not case sensitive (except in Linux computers). 
• Dates should be in computer sortable format yyyy-mm-dd, ex 2021-04-01.
• Consider separating files into folders by year, 
• Consider using "archive" folders to move older files out of a common use folder (when there are too many files).
• Think about how you will find this file again in the future. 

 

File Name Structure: (attribute 1)(attr 2)(attr 3)(attr 4).(ext)

Examples of attributes: 

• Statements
• Receipts
• Invoices
• Letters

Examples of Home Personal File Folders

/documents   Banking   Business   Financial Planning   Insurance   Investments   Medical   Owners Manuals   Real Estate   Receipts   Retirement   Statements   Taxes   Utility Accounts   Vet Stuff   zArchive

Note the use of the ‘z’ in front of the ‘archive’ folder. This makes it sort to the bottom of the list and out of the way.

Examples of Home Bank Files



Or by date:

How To Start 

Look through your folders and see what kinds of files you collect or create. How would you better group them? What attribute or name best describes the groups of files? Rename those files using that attribute first, then choose a second attribute to sub-sort them in the folder. 

How To Implement A Naming Convention or Process

In your personal computer at home or in a shared drive at work the folders are most likely filled with older files with poor names that are all in a jumble. The best way to get organized is not to fix the old stuff, just start new from today. Create a top-level folder with an appropriate name, then create relevant subfolders, then start to save files with new, useful file names. Before you know it you will blink and it will be a week from now, or a month, or a year. Your older files will be less useful or searched for and your new files will be much more organized than before. The point is to start today. 

Be diligent when you are saving files. Usually, we are in a hurry when we create a document (Word file or Excel spreadsheet) or save something from the Internet (ex. PDF files). So we give it a quick name so we can email it or move on to the next thing. Make yourself pause and think about how best to file this document you are saving. It is in this moment of saving something that organization happens. You are busy - you will never come back and clean it up later! Give it a proper name and location (folder) now.