{"id":91,"date":"2026-06-15T09:47:28","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T08:47:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/data-and-information-management\/?p=91"},"modified":"2026-06-15T09:51:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T08:51:19","slug":"file-naming-tips-and-why-you-should-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/data-and-information-management\/2026\/06\/15\/file-naming-tips-and-why-you-should-care\/","title":{"rendered":"File Naming: Tips and Why You Should Care"},"content":{"rendered":"

What you\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0want<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h1>\n

Harrison picks up another page and sighs. It\u2019s his third afternoon in a row of looking for inconsistencies between the digital and paper records. He must have gotten through 3,000 pages by now. Only 21,000 more to go.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Harrison\u00a0Pow-Jones\u00a0joined as the\u00a0Administrator in the\u00a0Governance team a\u00a0few\u00a0months earlier. He\u00a0was tasked\u00a0with\u00a0creating archives of all the\u00a0notes and minutes\u00a0from certain senior\u00a0meetings\u00a0over\u00a0the last 5 years. Due to the pandemic and everyone working from home,\u00a0the task of keeping a thorough record had\u00a0fallen to the wayside,\u00a0where it\u00a0became larger and ever more intimidating.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

All such documents \u2013\u00a0except for\u00a0bound\u00a0Council\u00a0and\u00a0Senate\u00a0minutes\u00a0\u2013 are\u00a0now\u00a0to be made digital,\u00a0but that\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0ease Harrison\u2019s pain of having to organise\u00a0all\u00a0the records.\u00a0Many were not stored in the right location,\u00a0contained\u00a0multiple documents for each meeting and, most importantly, were not consistently named.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He\u00a0recalls being asked to\u00a0find out when the formation of a board was approved and had to trawl through\u00a0Paper 255, Paper 255 (a), Paper 255 (b), Paper 256\u2026<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He tells me:\u00a0\u201cit\u2019s far more manageable to deal with things consistently as they come in\u00a0\u2013\u00a0leaving it all to be sorted in one go just makes the task significantly more difficult\u201d.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

With this in mind,\u00a0he\u00a0began to create\u00a0some\u00a0guidance.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How to\u00a0name your files<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h1>\n

There is no single correct way to name your files but there are many incorrect ways. The chief sin amongst them is not to be consistent. You don\u2019t want to think you\u2019ve lost an important document before realising your colleague has simply named it differently.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The other two main considerations are whether the file is unique and whether the reader can tell what the document is about with just a glance. R<\/span>egardless of how well the folders are organised, nobody wants to search through every one of your \u201cMeeting Notes\u201d, your \u201cDRAFTnotes(3)\u201d or your five separate documents for each lecture. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As well as good naming, the order\u00a0of\u00a0the\u00a0files\u00a0that\u00a0appear in your folder will make a significant difference.\u00a0Adding dates to your file names is great but the dates should be formatted by year, month and then date (YYYYMMDD;\u00a0e.g., 20260521) to avoid the\u00a0files becoming\u00a0jumbled.\u00a0For this\u00a0same\u00a0reason,\u00a0have all numbers\u00a0contain\u00a0at least two digits\u00a0(e.g., 01, 02).<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The system Harrison and the Governance team came up with was:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Start with\u00a0an initial, so you knew the type of document (e.g., C for a council meeting, M for a nondescript meeting, B for a blog).<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Follow this by the year\u00a0and then a\u00a0chronologically\u00a0increasing\u00a0number\u00a0within this folder (e.g., 2526 (to show the 2025 to 2026 academic year)\u00a0\u2013 02).<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Add a short name\u00a0to explain what the document is. Make sure to remove any filler words like\u00a0\u201cthe\u201d,\u00a0\u201ca\u201d and \u201cand\u201d.\u00a0If this is an appendix or a draft, include this info here.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. If you are renaming someone else's document, make sure they can find it by including any previous information sent to you.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Combining these together\u00a0and separating them out with hyphens, you form, for example:\u00a0<\/span>
    \nC2526\u00a0\u2013\u00a002 \u2013\u00a0AI\u00a0&\u00a0copyright law\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Appendix A \u2013\u00a0Shelved project<\/span><\/p>\n

    Too long,\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0read<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h1>\n
      \n
    • Files must be named consistently.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
        \n
      • File names must be unique.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
          \n
        • File names must be understood with a glance. If the file name is too long, it will get cut off and be harder to understand. Consider shortening your file names with these tips:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\n
            \n
          • Remove filler words (e.g., \u201cthe\u201d\/\u201cand\u201d).<\/span><\/li>\n
          • Remove spaces and use capital letters for\u00a0new words\u00a0(e.g.,\u00a0DonkeysCanBeScary).\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
          • Do not have multiple versions of the same document. Delete old drafts.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
              \n
            • Where possible, combine documents for the same meeting\/event.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
                \n
              • Be aware of how the computer will order the files within your folder.<\/span>\n
                  \n
                • If they all start with Draft or Final, they will be clumped together.<\/span><\/li>\n
                • If you are using numbers, make sure they are at least two digits (e.g., 01).<\/span><\/li>\n
                • If you are using full dates,\u00a0format it as YYYYMMDD or YYMMDD (e.g., 260521).\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
                    \n
                  • Consider using an initial to categorise\u00a0the\u00a0document (e.g., M for meeting or\u00a0R for report).<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
                      \n
                    • Certain special characters\u00a0will be rejected or\u00a0can make your\u00a0files\u00a0go haywire\u00a0when transferring them to other operating systems. Avoid:\u00a0*\u00a0.\u00a0: \\ \/ < > |\u00a0%\u00a0\" ?\u00a0[ ] ; =\u00a0#\u00a0+ \u00a3 $ ,\u00a0!<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

                      What you\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0want\u00a0 Harrison picks up another page and sighs. It\u2019s his third afternoon in a row of looking for inconsistencies between the digital and paper records. He must have gotten through 3,000 pages by now. Only 21,000 more to go.\u00a0...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2080,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[33],"tags":[23,21,8,5,24,16],"class_list":["post-91","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-file-naming","tag-archives","tag-archiving","tag-classifying","tag-information","tag-records","tag-storing"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/data-and-information-management\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/data-and-information-management\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/data-and-information-management\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/data-and-information-management\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2080"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/data-and-information-management\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/data-and-information-management\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/data-and-information-management\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/data-and-information-management\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/data-and-information-management\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}