# For people who use a folder structure different from the standard YYYY/YY-MM-DD one, what’s your system and why is it better for you?



## jasonduke784 (Nov 26, 2021)

I used client names, then, if necessary, subfolders with dates. The images therein had to be shared, and so I had to consider other users' access.
On occasion (and reluctantly) I even had to use separate catalogs for separate clients (privacy issues). It's a pain though if I ever needed to look at images in two catalogs...argh.
For personal stuff, it's all dated folders, with occasionally a word added like the location of a trip. But mostly I just ignore folders for personal stuff since I rarely if ever use them outside of Lr and other photo apps like Photo Mechanic or FastRawViewer.


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## Johan Elzenga (Nov 26, 2021)

The most important thing is that your folder system must be unambiguous. Images should belong to one folder only, and there should never be a reason to change folders. That makes dated folders a good solution, also because Lightroom can automatically do that for you. But there are other posibilities that may work just as well. Folders by client also makes sense, and if you mainly shoot while traveling, then destination-based folders make sense too. You can also combine that. A top folder called “France”, and then year folders for each trip to that country if France is a regular destination for you.


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## Paul_DS256 (Nov 26, 2021)

Personally, I started organizing by geographical area then a subfolder by year if needed. This works for me because, if I'm looking for a photo, I will likely remember 'where' I took and not 'when'. Having said that, this was established before I started using Lr and it's Library Filtering capabilities which was after I started ensuring my photos are tagged with metadata and keywords. My work is all persona; none commercial.


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## johnbeardy (Nov 26, 2021)

To John's "unambiguous" I would add objective and future-proofed. 
For example, a top level folder called "United Kingdom" may not make as much sense if the UK's no longer united in the current form. Say Scotland became independent - are you going to start moving photos or folders around?  Or would you have  folders for photos taken when it was in the UK and others when you visit after independence? And now your backup no longer matches the hard drives. Likewise "clients" change their structures, whether they are businesses which reform and/or change ownership, or whether they are families which break up or change name etc.  
Using folders for subjective categorisation is always more effort and often leads to compromises, while dates are objective and never change. Categorisation is a job for keywords and other metadata. But you can make almost any system work, to some extent.


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## Paul_DS256 (Nov 26, 2021)

johnbeardy said:


> For example, a top level folder called "United Kingdom" may not make as much sense if the UK's no longer united in the current form. Say Scotland became independent - are you going to start moving photos or folders around?


I have but driven more by volume than succession.  For example, when I was traveling for work, I had one folder for "USA". As I started visiting more places, and returning to previous haunts, I started to move photos to new 'where' subfolders. Now, this was made easier because I had the location in metadata.

In the end I would suggest good metadata is better than folder structure since the metadata can be used to create collections.


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## clee01l (Nov 26, 2021)

One thing that I would add to the discussion. There is no folder organization structure that can’t be replicated in Lightroom Collections. In the original scope of Lightroom planning, I think Adobe intended Collections, not folders to be the main organizational scheme. You can put a single image in many collections. The filesystem constrains image files to a single folder.


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## johnbeardy (Nov 26, 2021)

clee01l said:


> In the original scope of Lightroom planning, I think Adobe intended Collections, not folders to be the main organizational scheme.


There was one iteration where you didn't see folders - photos were "managed" rather like Aperture v1 .


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## clee01l (Nov 26, 2021)

johnbeardy said:


> There was one iteration where you didn't see folders - photos were "managed" rather like Aperture v1 .



This is the current approach used by Lightroom (cloudy). Folders are so unimportant in the Lightroom organization, that Adobe abandoned the option completely when developing Lightroom (cloudy).

If some LrC user opts to switch from LrC to LR, then a folder based organization will be destroyed by the transition. 


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## Woodbutcher (Nov 27, 2021)

My structure is probably overly deep for most people, but it started back when I did a 365 project.  Pictures folder on my mac is top level.  Then it CameraModel/YYYY/YYYY-MM/YYYY-MM-DD.  So I can quickly find a particular day's shoot.  I keyword and/or use collections for projects and trips.  This also meshes with my backup and archive strategy.


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