- Year first in dates
- Short, plain names
- Number the versions
- Names that sort themselves
DATES
Year, month, day
ISO 8601 gives an internationally agreed way to write dates: YYYY-MM-DD. Files named this way list in date order.
Check a file nameWHAT THE GUIDES SAY
A good name is
a filing system.
A good name saves a long search later.
University research data guides keep coming back to the same few habits: put dates in year-month-day order, keep names short, skip spaces and odd symbols, and number your versions.
YYYY-MM-DD sorts itself
Check a file name
THE SHORT ANSWER
Name it for
the person searching.
That person is usually you, months later.
Three habits do most of the work.
CHARACTERS
No spaces, no symbols
The CESSDA guide says to avoid spaces, dots and special characters such as & ? ! and to separate parts with hyphens or underscores.
Four habits
VERSIONS
v01 beats final_final
Westminster's guide suggests marking Draft or Final and adding a version number after a V, with at least two digits, such as v02.
See the numbersA QUICK NAME CHECK
Would you find
this file again?
Pick a file name. The bar shows how closely it follows the habits university data guides recommend.
Based on file naming guidance from CESSDA, the University of Manchester, the University of Westminster and ISO 8601.
TWO NUMBERS WORTH KNOWING
Short names,
shallow folders.
One figure for the name,
one for the folders it lives in.
25 characters
Enough for a meaningful file name
Manchester's research data guide says that in all, 25 characters should be sufficient to give a data file a meaningful name, such as project-225-descriptions-08.xls.
NAME LENGTH · UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
3–4 levels
Suggested depth of a folder tree
The CESSDA guide says it helps to keep folders three or four deep and to have no more than ten items on each list.
FOLDERS · CESSDA
Manchester also suggests fixing how many digits you use, such as 01 or 002, so that numbered files list in the right order.
FOUR HABITS TO TRY
Tidy names,
starting today.
You do not need to rename everything at once. Start with new files and the folders you open most.
Put the date first, year first
Write dates as YYYY-MM-DD so files list chronologically and nobody has to guess the day from the month.
Keep it short and meaningful
Name what the file is about in a few words. The CESSDA guide says to create meaningful but brief names.
Pick one separator and stick to it
Hyphens, underscores or capital letters all appear in the guides. What matters is replacing spaces and staying consistent.
Number versions with two digits
Use v01, v02 and so on, and add Draft or Final, instead of piling up copies called new or final.
CONSISTENCY
The best scheme
is the one you keep.
The guides do not all agree on details: CESSDA and Manchester suggest hyphens or underscores, while Westminster prefers capital letters to separate words.
They do agree on consistency. CESSDA says a naming strategy should be consistent over time and among different people, and that names should make sense wherever the file ends up on a computer.
Questions
Questions people ask
What is the best date format for file names?
YYYY-MM-DD. ISO 8601 describes it as an internationally agreed way to represent dates, and university data guides recommend it so files display chronologically.
Should I use spaces in file names?
The guides advise against it. CESSDA says to avoid spaces, dots and special characters, and Westminster notes some software struggles with spaces.
How long should a file name be?
Short. The University of Manchester says 25 characters should be sufficient for a meaningful name, and CESSDA says to avoid very long file names.
How should I number versions?
Westminster suggests a V followed by the version number, with at least two digits, such as v02. Manchester suggests numeric labels like 1.0, 1.1 and 1.2.
How many folders deep should I go?
CESSDA suggests restricting folders to three or four levels deep, with no more than ten items on each list.