Thinking About Files and Documents
Right now, I primarily store things in iCloud, with A LOT of legacy storage in Dropbox. I’ve used Readdle Documents (backed by iCloud storage) as a document manager for a long time now, largely because of how good it is for managing PDFs. Documents' capacity for acting as a media player is also useful; I’ve been listening to more of my own music library recently (from files stored in Dropbox) than Spotify [1]. And though I haven’t used it for a while, the ability to connect to different network locations has come in handy.
The one thing I’ve always missed from Documents (and I’ve been hoping for this for years) is an easy way to generate links to files [2]. Thinking about it again this morning, as often happens, a search of my own Shortcuts turned up a few efforts I’d made to solve this problem in the past. One of them (based on a Shortcuts “get link to file” action) seems to consistently fail by complaining about the file needing to be uploaded to iCloud first, even when the file is stored in iCloud. There’s obviously something I’m misunderstanding there. The other shortcut uses Toolbox Pro to create a file URL and seems to work well, though I’d need to run the shortcut and locate the file through the shortcut’s interface to create the link, rather than just sending a file to the shortcut via the share sheet. I’ve also thus far suffered from a lack of clarity around “edit in place”, where I’m never really sure whether I’m editing the original document or a newly created copy [3]. Not the most intuitive workflow, but it’s not something I need to do every day, so I can probably make it work.
All that aside, I know my issue isn’t really about the applications. It’s about being clearer on a filing system. Over the years, I’ve stored files in local filesystems and cloud storage accessed through Finder, Dropbox, Box.com, iCloud Drive / Files.app, Documents, FileBrowser, Google Drive, Keep It and more. Some of these apps are destinations in themselves, some of them are portals for other storage locations, and some function as both. I’ve got PDFs stashed in Notes, MarginNote, Omnivore, etc etc. I have filing structures duplicated across Dropbox and iCloud, where I’ve essentially recreated a way of working in a new location without transferring the relevant files. There’s a lot of wreckage, detritus and bad habits accumulated over years, mixed in with currently functional things, making it all the more difficult to see my way clear. And it’s not so dysfunctional that I can’t get anything done, but I am thinking more about all the instances of cognitive overhead I fail to account for or otherwise dismiss, and how they might add up.
[1]: I’m also listening to more music podcasts (Headphone Commute, Music For Programming), and I’ve cancelled my SoundCloud subscription. Never really got into Apple Music, and I should probably just export my iTunes library and switch off iTunes Match… [2]: Keep It and FileBrowser do a pretty good job of this, but Documents' feature set and UI serve me better. [3]: Something for me to investigate further; I can’t remember when “edit-in-place” was first announced in iPadOS, but the way it works has never been as clear to me as in other operating systems, likely because iPadOS is (and has traditionally been) biased more towards apps than documents…