Getting clarity in your database: keep filenames short as tag-like entities

DEVONthink
1

THIS post was originally about a sync issue I had while changing file names - that is now resolved, so I’ll now focus on what I was changing - the file names to get better self clarity of database:

Filenames - keep them short

(1) Two words (or less) for each filename of my own choosing
(2) Switch off the detail …

This setup effectively uses the titles as tag like entities.

It now provides me with fantastic clarity of my database, and forces me to engage with each file, to generate a short name specific to me.

A simple thing, but its transformed my usage.

1 Like
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My naming standard is the opposite
From the inbox, I use a script to assign names, tags, database etc

My standard is: subject-date type [description] keywords
The keywords are a copy of tagnames
Examples
2021-04-12 Receipt [Lunch] zTypeReceipt zVendorTimHortons zBudgetFoodDining $-2.09
2021-01-05 Actionable-Task [To Do - Script - Project Review] zTypeActionable zProjectDevonthinkConversion

I guess you could say I keep the [description] short, but the additional detail is needed for clarification

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I totally agree with this and we even blogged about the benefits of short filenames. :blush:

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So you do not use any meta data at all but put them all in the file name? Or do you simply duplicate some/all metadata in the file name to achieve … what?

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I use Tags metadata, duplicated in the file name
No subject-date metadata, but it usually defaults to creation-date

to achieve … what?

as I said, clarification of the short description