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How to Name Your Documents So You Can Easily Find Them Later
The Problem
You’re trying to find a document on your Windows or Macintosh computer. You think you called it August Smith Report.
- You look around on your Desktop, but you don’t see it.
- You look in various other folders, including Documents, the Smith folder, its Reports subfolder, and a completely separate Reports folder (which you don’t remember creating), but it’s not in any of them.
- You use your computer’s search function and enter those 3 words, but none of the files it finds have that name or the right contents, or even worse, it finds no matches at all.
- You check your email Inbox and Sent folders, but you don’t see it.
- You remember a colleague that you might have sent it to, so you ask if they’ve still got it and if so, to kindly send a copy back to you.
- You check your travel USB flash drive, but it’s not there.
- You look in your Dropbox, OneDrive, iCloud or Google Drive online storage, but you can’t find it.
- You look in your recent backup, but it’s not there, either.
Despite being sure that it’s got to be somewhere, you finally give up and decide to either recreate it or live without it.
Weeks later you run across Jones Q3 Analysis and realize that that was the document you were looking for.
Read on for my advice on how you might prevent this problem and make it easier (and quicker) to find a document in the future.
The technique
Here’s my two-step approach:
- To increase my chances of finding a document (or folder) that I may be hunting for later, my approach is to add extra keywords to its name (not its contents), separated by spaces.
- Later, if I’m not sure which folder that document is in, I use my computer’s search function with the most distinctive keywords that come to mind, and then I usually find it.
Most often those extra words that I add are:
- Synonyms for words that are already in its current name
- Extra adjectives or qualifiers.
For example:
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Jones Q3 Analysis.doc: I might add all of the following keywords to its name: Report, July, August, September, 2025, Smith, client, analyze
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bookkeeping notes.doc: deductible, business, hotel cost, travel expenses, taxes, accountant
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Staples rewards.xls: points, discount, cash back, cashback, ink, toner, cartridge, monthly
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IMG_0137.jpg: family christmas 2025 portland me maine winter twins tree dad
I try to think of words that I might search for later, whether they’re inside that file or not.
Note that capitalization usually doesn’t matter, so if you add “client” you don’t also need to add “Client.” You must separate your keywords with spaces. Feel free to include commas if they help group your keywords, they won’t affect any searches that only specify words.
In modern terms, this is a primitive (and very visible) form of metadata.
Note that by default:
- Most computer-search algorithms use a “has words that start with” approach, which will find more matches than a “has these exact words” approach.
- They will also search both the names and the contents of your documents for any words that match your keywords.
So, if you search for:
- cash - The search will find files that have any words starting with “cash” in their names or contents, which will also match “cashback,” “cashew,” “cashmere,” “cashing,” “cashier,” etc.
- cash back - Searching for these two keywords will find files which satisfy two criteria at the same time: a. They have words that start with “cash” and b. They also have words that start with “back,” anywhere, and in any order.
- aug - Will also match “august,” “augment,” “auger,” “aught,” etc.
Sending such a document via email
If you’re going to email such a document to someone else, I recommend:
- Make a copy of that document.
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Simplify that copy’s name by removing your extra keywords to prevent the other person from getting distracted or confused by all of your keywords.
- After you send the email, I recommend that you then delete that copy to reduce document clutter and confusion on your end.
There are two other technical factors that can affect how well this method works.
Limits on the length of filenames and paths
When you’re adding extra keywords to a document name, feel free to type as many as you want, separated by spaces.
Your computer has underlying limits on the length of a document name (around 200-250 characters, depending on a number of factors) that it will enforce, as well as a separate limit on the length of the “path” (the names of the folders and subfolders it takes to specify exactly where your document is stored), but most of the time you’re unlikely to encounter a problem.
In the 3 examples above, the longest one would result in a filename with a total of 85 characters.
Search limitations
This technique also assumes that your computer’s search function is functioning properly. To make sure that it’s working, you can use this simple test:
- Temporarily add an extra and distinctive keyword to an existing document’s name. I like to use “abcdef” or “foobar.” Don’t forget to separate that keyword from any others using spaces.
- Then, search for that keyword right away.
- If the search finds it, things are working properly.
- If not, there’s a problem, which can often be solved by waiting a few minutes, Restarting, forcing the computer to recreate its search index, or all 3.
- When you’re done, don’t forget to remove that extra keyword.
Where to go from here
As always, if any of my advice seems too difficult to follow, I recommend that you find someone you know and trust who can help you.
In the searches below, replace “X” with either “Windows” or “Macintosh.”
- google: X how to search for a document
- google: X maximum filename length
- google: X maximum path length
- google: X search index not working
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