Folders are rigid and exclusionary by their nature. Whatever is in a folder lives separated from the main collection. It’s a rigid hierarchy that imposes order. Without special workarounds this limits note accessibility, discourages interdisciplinary thinking, and stunts the long-term growth of a complex and interesting Zettelkasten. There are some strategic uses for folders, but their overuse may be a sign that the user is uncomfortable with other, arguably better methods of building relationships between notes while maintaining the long-term health of their digital library. If you have some quixotic notion about creating a digital library that acts as an interesting conversation partner — folders don’t make it as easy. What about for projects? Depending on the use cases, a person might like using folders for projects. - If your goal is to manage projects, folders are great — maybe even ideal. You might decide that you want your projects to be actively walled-off units. - But once they are final, you would need to take the extra steps of reformulating any good stuff into your main digital library. A possible use for a folder is as a temporary inbox, or “incubation” folder. As long as you view these research streams as temporary staging grounds, to be deleted or assimilated with the Borg- er, I mean, your main-brain-frame; you should be fine. Otherwise, that inbox folder can get awfully crufty. Another possible use for folders would be for “very clearly defined” notes. For example, things like: Images, People, Quotes, and Source Materials (things written by other people). You don’t have to use these folders; you could easily add their contents into the main vault; but you might find it keeps things slightly more tidy. But know this: retreating too much into project-based folder management will cripple your long-term thinking partner (i.e., your zettelkasten) from growing complex, dynamic, and interesting cross-genre connections. You won’t have a zettelkasten, you’ll have a collection of silo-ed folders. Those are massive costs to consider. That said, limiting accessibility may be ideal for private information like finances, health, and private journaling. Then a folder is the perfect instrument to intentionally cordon off those notes from the rest. Just don’t go into the trap of creating 50 folders and subfolders in a single “organizing” frenzy; it won’t work out. There are many ways to use folders, but the best way to add new ones is to allow the need to emerge slowly through using your system. If you find yourself thinking more than once that, “a folder would be perfect here,” then that’s your cue to try one out. ### Question _How do you want to use folders?_ This is typically a question really worth taking about. So let’s talk about it below!