How to set up a perfect filing system

From your noodle to other noodles. Talk about ways to get the most from Hazel. Even exchange recipes for the cool rules you've thought up. DO NOT POST YOUR QUESTIONS HERE.

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How to set up a perfect filing system Fri Jan 28, 2022 1:45 am • by Trickyt57
I like to store my files in three places
1) The cloud, (I use OneDrive, but you could use GoogleDrive, DropBox, or iCloud etc)
2) On two physical hard drives attached to my computer.

Note about cloud storage
Whilst I suppose that most well known cloud storage services are safe and secure, you never know. I use Boxcryptor to seamlessly and invisibly encrypt all files before they are uploaded.

Also make sure you have a local backup - or use two cloud services. You never know when you may lose access to your cloud stored documents. That's why I back everything up to two physically connected external drives.

I like all my file names to contain at least three important pieces of information:
    Date
    Sequential file number
    Descriptor (e.g. Merrill Lynch USD current account no 123456

Automating your filing (PDFs)
PDFs arrive on my computer from two sources - Downloads, and from my scanner.

I have a folder on my computer called "New PDFs". Any newly scanned document or downloaded document arrives in this folder. Make sure your scanner produces OCR readable documents. If not, you will need to use a program like Cisdem PDF Converter OCR. That's an annoying extra step, so it may be worth paying a little more for a good scanner if you scan a lot of documents.

The first step is to name the document correctly. To do this you will need to be familiar with how to use the "Contain Match" function of Hazel. I won't explain that here. It's very powerful, so well worth learning.

My rule looks something like this
Image

The first "Rename" command adds a sequential number to the start of the file name in the format "000000" (You can set your own format). This means the file name will look something like "001263 Merrill Lynch 123456 from 2021-12-01.pdf".

This number is useful in case I want to use Spotlight to retrieve all copies of the file, perhaps because I have modified the rule and want to re-scan. The next line copies the file into a folder which contains every file ever synched in number order. : I use "Sync", and not "Copy". You should too.

The next line renames the file with the date at the front. I want all the Merrill Lynch statements to be in order sorted according to date. The file name will now become: "2021-12-31 001263 Merrill Lynch 123456 from 2021-12-01.pdf".

Lastly the file is moved to the Merrill Lynch folder.

Not shown is another rule I have made which scans all the folders and copies them to the two external back-up drives. Note in the image below, you can have your folders in a "flat" format (parent folder only) in alphabetical order, or in "tree" or "coat-hanger format (from monitored folder".)

Image
Trickyt57
 
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Joined: Tue Sep 18, 2018 12:17 am

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