Alias Folder or Duplicate it? Your Preference.

[HappyDude20]

Quick Back Story

On my desktop I have only my Mac HD. I'm aware some people have countless folders and items on theirs but ever since switching to Apple 3 years ago I've had a clear, clean desktop.

A while ago I was upset at my lack of organization regarding all my files on my Mac. Files and folders of all sorts were in my documents, simply cause that was the default located to save everything. Recently I organized everything in appropriate folders and alphabetically put them in my documents folder. This made me happy as everything was now in a folder and in alphabetical order for my to quickly retrieve and to have a spot to quickly save something in its appropriate context.

Then I dragged the documents folder to the right side of the dock so I could easily see all those organized folders in a stack; which I must say I love. I love just going to the dock, clicking the documents stack and seeing all my stuff, organized.

What I'm Asking Here

The reason I'm writing this is because I've realized that I don't need/want/have to open my documents folder to see ALL of my stuff, when in my life i'll only be focusing on say 10 stuff of importance in there.

In order words, why do I need to open the documents folder to see over 100 folders of stuff that isn't of immediately importance and for the most part stuff is just in there for reference or for whatever reason. Yet obviously i'm going into my doucments folder for a reason and it is to open a folder of interest, say open a folder for "Forensic Anthropology" and/or a folder regarding my "Renewing My Gym Membership."

So this is where an Alias of Duplicate folder would come in. However i'm not quite sure on which to settle on. I'm thinking one of two possible locations to place this type of folder; with the purpose of this folder to house those folders of current interest, instead of me going through my laundry list of folders under the documents folder.

One location I'll consider is the right of the dock, or secondly on the desktop under my Mac HD.

However which would be best? To duplicate a folder or to create an alias for it? Personally I'd like to be able to see these files i'm currently interested in, create new files say a Pages document and save it to this new folder and have it automatically saved to the main folder under the documents folder. Finally, when I'm done with my Forensic Anthropology project, to be able to drag this "Alias or Duplicate" folder to the trash, obviously since I'm done with that project, but still have the newly created documents that were saved in there, still saved in the main folder (under documents).

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Hello -

I'm in a similar organizational situation as you are, though not anywhere near as complex as yours (15 folders in Documents, rather than several hundred). Given what you've said, I recommend a combination approach.

Create your new folder wherever makes the most sense to put it. Then, put aliases of the folders you use frequently in this folder. This way, you get the best of both worlds: Both folders are always up-to-date (since aliases are used) yet you don't have to deal with the clutter of folders you do NOT use.

 

[portent]

I don't understand what you mean by "Duplicate"

In the Finder, if you choose File > Duplicate, you make a completely seperate, exact copy. Both take up the same amount of space. They are completely seperate and have no relationship to one another once you finish copying. If you change one, the other stays the way it was.

What you might be looking for is a "Smart Folder. A Smart Folder is a search that you've saved. Every time you open it, it runs the search again. It doesn't hold anything on its own; it just searches for items elsewhere.

Aliases are simple pointers, links, or shortcuts. Each alias points to one real item. If you delete the original item, the alias points to nothing. If you delete the alias, the item is still wherever it was and doesn't change.