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Organize the text files you use every day
Everyone has a handful of small text files they open again and again: a checklist, a template, a list of links, a few lines of notes. Digging through folders to find them wastes minutes that add up. Here is a simple way to keep them within reach.
What belongs in the list
- Checklists you repeat, such as a publishing checklist or a trip packing list.
- Prompts and snippets you paste into other tools.
- Templates for emails, reports, or web pages.
- Meeting agendas and running notes.
- Configuration files and small data files you tweak often.
Keep passwords and secret keys out of plain text files. A text file is readable by anyone who can open it.
Use descriptions as labels
BookmarkFiles never changes a file's name on disk, so the description box next to each file is your label. A short phrase such as “weekly report template” is much easier to scan than a name like final_v3_new.txt. Descriptions are searchable, so typing a word from one in the search box finds the file.
Group files with folders
Use New Folder to make a group, then drag files onto it, or right-click the folder and choose Add files. Folders are one level deep and only exist in this list. Nothing is moved, copied or renamed on your computer, so you can reorganize as often as you like without any risk to the real files. Dragging a folder moves it together with the files inside.
Select several files at once
Hold Ctrl and click to pick files one by one, or hold Shift to select a range. Then drag the group to a folder, press Save to save all selected files, or Close to remove them from the list.
Save your layout
Once your list looks right, press Save Layout. It stores your folders, the order of files, file names and descriptions in a small file. Press Load Layout later to bring everything back. In the same browser, files you opened before reconnect automatically by name. On another computer or browser you will be asked to point to the files once, either by choosing them or by picking a folder to search.
A few habits that help
- Give every file a description the moment you add it.
- Keep two or three folders, not twenty. Fewer choices make the list faster to use.
- Save a layout file to a cloud-synced folder so you can restore your setup on a new machine.
- Remove files you no longer use. The list is a shortcut tool, not an archive.
Related guides
- How BookmarkFiles opens and saves your files
- Why text files look garbled: UTF-8, EUC-KR and other encodings
- Find and replace across many files, safely
Ready to try it? Open BookmarkFiles in Chrome or Edge on a desktop computer.