Folders, and why they sit inside each other
Understand what a folder really is, and be able to file a cluttered desktop without hesitating over any of it.
A folder holds files. It can also hold other folders — and that single fact is how every computer is organized.
Picture a filing cabinet. A drawer marked Household, and inside it a wallet marked Electricity, and inside that the bills. Nobody finds that arrangement confusing on paper, and it is precisely the same idea on a screen.
One folder with four hundred things in it is no better than a desktop with four hundred things on it. The value of folders is not tidiness for its own sake — it is that you can take in a small folder at a glance.
Key points
- A folder holds files, and can hold other folders — that is the whole system
- Filing moves a file. It never changes, compresses or endangers it
- Small folders are useful because you can see all of one at a glance
- The names along the top of a file window read from the outside in
What to remember
- Putting something in a folder is exactly as safe as putting a letter in a drawer. Nothing is altered and nothing is at risk.
- Notice how much calmer the same eight things look once they are arranged. Nothing was deleted to achieve that.
- That row of names along the top of a file window is showing you exactly this, left to right. It is called the breadcrumbs, and reading it tells you where you are without any guessing.
Try this
Open Documents on your own computer and make one new folder in it. Call it something you genuinely need — Bills, or Letters. Then move one file into it. That is the entire skill, and you have now done it twice.
Practice: Folders, and why they sit inside each other. Your first lesson is free, with no account or card; the rest are part of a Lantern plan. Interactive lessons require JavaScript.