PSA: Life is short. Don't spend too much time obsessively cataloguing your data collections.

I’ve been collecting genealogical data for the last 15 years. You better believe I keep that organized, otherwise I would be screwed.

I agree. As I get older I want more out of my hobbies than just fun and stress reduction. I want to grow, learn a useful skill, engage with media that resonates with me emotionally. Organizing files accomplishes none of those things. Low value way to spend my time.

I just use filebot

I do it to make other people happy. Seeing them happy brings me joy.

Like for real I never watch any of my content. I don't watch media in general I just play video games and ride my motorcycle.

Is that what remuxing means? How do you do it?

Honestly this might be your opinion, but for me it actually is enjoyable. The whole putting everything in it's place, documenting it all and all that stuff that's where I get the actual enjoyment.

I don't think your efforts should be seen as "pointless" just because you're the only person who would ever be able to appreciate the fruits of your efforts. Self-actualization is an important part of finding peace with your mortality. Whatever it is you gotta do to get there, you gotta look within yourself to find that. For some people, creating a personal art museum that nobody else but them will ever see is what helps them get there.

I use a desktop app called Neofinder which scans any hard drive. As long as there’s at least a name (I add a date as well) that helps you find something, then it’s easy to search for it and find it using the app. It also shows me how many copies I have which lets me help decide if I can erase a drive if I need space.

If you did it that long, you probably on some level enjoy the busy work. You might just be burnt out. I know when something needs fixing on a software level I can spend infinite time just trying to fix it. Way more than I'd ever use said software too.

/r/lostredditors ?

I'm caught in this trap and it's turned my love/hate of hoarding into hate/love. I currently have 40TB+ of files to organize, but put it off because it's such a chore.

But, I do it because not organizing it would mean I wouldn't know what I have and where to find it. With proper organization and tools like Everything and VVV (Virtual Volumes View), I can find anything within seconds, as long as I know something about what I'm looking for.

Did you recently have a wake-up call that made you think death is coming soon? I have, and it made me re-evaluate my archiving, in the sense that:

(1) For me, it's only worth organizing if I can find some memories later.

(2) There are some great tools like Hazel (on Mac) to auto-sort.

(3) Otherwise, it must be autotelic.

There is joy in being AUTOTELIC, when you enjoy the process of something for its own sake. No one else has to know or understand, as long as it matters to YOU!!! I want everyone who sees this to know this word, it's very powerful and meaningful.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autotelic

Inside of me there are two wolves One wolf obsessively categorizes all files pertaining to their purpose.

The other wolf employs a search index service that annihilates the need for the files to be organized (for the most part).

I feed them both obnoxious amounts of time tinkering with their efficiencies. It gives me a sense of control in my out of control life.

nah i enjoy collecting music and sorting things 😤😤😤

Collecting things is fun. If you don't turn it into obsession

because I believe that in the future, the governments will make it very difficult to share copyrighted media online

How do you believe this will happen? I hear this sentiment a lot but never a well put together explanation of how one thinks this is possible...

The data hoard must grow.

Here's one way I look at it. You could spend countless hours meticulously going through every file and grouping, renaming, etc. Or. You could take time, create a script to automate it all for you. This does a couple things:

1. You get some experience learning how to script dealing with file organization
2. You save time since you're automating a lot of formerly time-consuming activities thus freeing up time to do other things.

Also:

I will also delete stuff that I've watched/played that I didn't enjoy. I've come to a realization there's no point archiving it if I'm never going to use it again.

BLASPHEMY!!!

Well I've been looking for way to save everything in offline mode only stuff you want, and I came across this group just, I spotted your article here and it's made me think well why not...

Create a community driven nostalgic looking frontend that is categorised for eg. save sites to text and save sites to text with images/ save pdf/save video/save iso etcetc so you basically havwe a bridge to the web through this frontend it's own simple browser that can extract and download the content for offline frontend use cases with the format of your choice then you could have shares on a website or server of these builds people have made with the mb/gb/tb/pb and so one file size to download from their own links provided these could also be apart of the frontend.

​

Now that would be wicked you could also provide choices to install a chat tool inside your build for running a community that's either online or offline so you can actually go offline any time with a button and online with a button to get back to the community when you like, now that would be so cool using special build crawlers to drag down and vbuild data into custom archive frontends you could theme them as wellthat would be nice man.

yes, now i categorize like this

live service
playing
complete (deleted)
backlog

Joke's on you, I'm already committed

Do what I did. Get a boyfriend to do it, get him addicted to cataloguing and have him waste his life so you're free to do more shopping for Blu-rays... To rip.

But I do it for fun, scrambling through my Data organizing it here and there.

I've realized this recently too

Your stuff isn't being organized and titled properly automatically?

I have sonarr and radarr naming things exactly how I want them.

Mine's tidy but not overly tidy. For example, I don't rename every file. I have a folder called "TV shows live action" and folders inside that are the name of the show and years aired. Every season is one zip file as store compression.

I think this is reasonable and cuts down on clutter. I used to obsessively rename files in the past and it wasn't worth the trouble.

Ok - you sound a bit depressed. I get it.

There is a part of you that is shaming you for 'not being productive'. I have this as well.

You have to realize that there is another part of you that likes TV, movies, sex, games, hanging out with friends and video games.

All of these activities are a "waste of time" to the part of you that is torturing you.

But - there is another part of you that enjoys your cataloging. It is calming and relaxing. You get a sense of satisfaction putting things in order. It gives you some control in a world that is un-certain.

​

Question: Have you ever gone to the gym or had a trainer? They will make you exercise parts of your body that you normally do not use. This is to prevent atrophy of these less used parts.

Your hobbies and "Data Hording" is similar. You are organizing, working with the computer, deciding how to solve problems and interacting with us here.

Like exercising strange muscles - you are working things that are not really 'productive' or useful. But like the gym - it helps to do these tasks to keep yourself whole.

The one trick - time box how much time you spend. An hour in front of the computer - then an hour cleaning the room, kitchen, grocery shopping, etc.

Be aware of your balance.

Try to forgive yourself. Look at "stamp collecting" - you never 'finish' or use the stamps to mail things. The researching, collecting, organizing, cataloging etc. are all important parts of the hobby.

I also rarely read/watch the things I collect. But I love fixing problems, writing scripts to rename things, coming up with a 'workflow', etc. My mind is always active, I seek out "...how do you guys solve this problem?" posts here.

It's not the destination that is important, it's the journey. And sharing problems and solutions.

​

So let me ask: what was the last annoying problem you solved cataloging your collection? Is your solution more clever than mine?

Go ahead and add this to your collection >!/s!<

More seriously though, I've thought about all the duplicated/overlapping work everyone here must be doing and wished there was a way for everyone to contribute to a central archive so the indexing/labeling/etc excessive manual labor components could be distributed without running into the copyright issues of sharing those files.

You don’t need to have a nervous breakdown when you’ve grown tired of a hobby. Pick a new one

Thanks, tho I'll do whatever I want.

On the whole I agree with your point.

I was keeping a lot of media that Id never watch again because it was crap. Then I realised why keep it? I have no duty to provide it to others and don't need to repeat view.

Secondly, I found that my photo collection has thousands (literally of duplicates). Using python heading out was very easy to clean this out. I suffered some paranoia before automatically deleting the files but came to the conclusion that deleting by hand was not an option.

Finally, I think I've got a collection larger than I need (ie a hoard). I don't see it as a problem but my growth rate has slowed as I prioritise other things rather than collecting. I agree with your sentiment that there's better things to do than meta data curating but who am I to judge :)

Well I've been looking for way to save everything in offline mode only stuff you want, and I came across this group just, I spotted your article here and it's made me think well why not...

Create a community driven nostalgic looking frontend that is categorised for eg. save sites to text and save sites to text with images/ save pdf/save video/save iso etcetc so you basically havwe a bridge to the web through this frontend it's own simple browser that can extract and download the content for offline frontend use cases with the format of your choice then you could have shares on a website or server of these builds people have made with the mb/gb/tb/pb and so one file size to download from their own links provided these could also be apart of the frontend.

​

Now that would be wicked you could also provide choices to install a chat tool inside your build for running a community that's either online or offline so you can actually go offline any time with a button and online with a button to get back to the community when you like, now that would be so cool using special build crawlers to drag down and vbuild data into custom archive frontends you could theme them as wellthat would be nice man.

I just do the most basic lazy cataloging like music, shows, games etc. Some people like to do the extended cataloging, it's a hobby for them, so I say if it's fun for them then why not? It's not a waste of time then. If not then yeah, you don't have to force yourself just for sake of clarity/ocd.

I’ve never considered organizing beyond the 5 primary folders that I use. Never saw a point to micromanaging every file.

Just 5 main, simple categories, for all data.

I'm not going to stop hoarding anytime soon.

I don't like not being dependent on subscription streaming services and DRM platforms like Steam.

The simple fact that redditors here feel the NEED to downvote anyone who agrees with me, shows that they're emotionally conflicted with their unhealthy obsessions, and they're looking for a way to COPE by downvoting people who have taken control over their lives. Because those redditors know deep inside that they have no control over their OCD habits, and seeing those who have claimed control makes them feel uneasy.

If you have as much fun organising your media as you do consuming that media, then that is time well spent.

renaming the files

Can be automated

grouping them into folders by franchise

Should be managed in database rather than filesystem, and automated

remuxing videos so they would only have one audio and one subtitle file, reencoding videos that I considered bloated, reencoding videos that had flac or 5.1 audio to opus stereo

Waste of electricity and requires you to backup the file itself rather than a torrent, as you no longer have exactly what others have. Also a minor point you will kick yourself if you ever buy a surround sound setup and/or discover the wonders of headphone virtual surround

putting all my files into a spreadsheet along with other information

For any media category there almost certainly exists a database system that can do this for you automatically. You mentioned anime, in which case an example is Shoko

--

tl;dr you're complaining about a problem you created, and solving the problem by scorched earth-ing the entire problem

    It makes me happy to look at my collection. Even if I'm not opening the files, just seeing a folder full of thumbnails of every issue of Nintendo Power magazine, or that dream collection of old console game ROM, brings out that eight year old whose family could afford to get me two NES games a year - one on Christmas, one on my Birthday, and that was a HUGE deal for me. It gives me this little spike of dopamine just see it and remind myself it's there. It's mine. It's a collection. I get a thrill from collecting it.

    A lot of people, they sit in front of a screen, they scroll Facebook, they seem gossipy bullshit about vapid celebrities, the same generic, memey "riding the wave of trends so you'll like me" reels made by people who will be end up the subject of some drama YouTuber's expose in a few years, and of course the ever-important "here's your super toxic thing of the day, make sure to get as furious as possible at this, while we go ruin people's lives for participting it, and then for agreeing with it, and then for disagreeing with it, but not loudly enough" shit that twists them into knots and re-affirms on a daily basis that the world is a horrible place and everything is bad and they should be fucking miserable.

    I sit in front of a screen and catalog and sort all the wonderful things that make me feel excited. So maybe no one else will ever see it. Maybe I'm not impressing anyone else. Who cares? We need to stop basing our valuations of things on whether or not it gets us attention or appreciation from others. This stuff makes me happy. That's enough.

If you enjoy doing it,

why does it matter?

This is just your personal issue, doesn't apply to others. Although the process you're doing is too excessive with the sorting and such.

Sometimes it's about the journey and not he destination. Enjoy what you enjoy and try not to think about it too much. Life's too short to second guess yourself.

If you’re not enjoying it then yes, it’s a waste of time. For me, the setup is the hobby, and I throughly enjoy it.

Its like audiophiles....Some people listen to music some people listen to their sound system.

As with everything, moderation is key.

I love organizing shit, and so I don’t mind giving hours of my life towards doing something I enjoy.

A similar disclaimer could probably be pinned to every single subreddit

To an extent, I agree. For me, if I was out of control, I'd label every single movie, short and episode file with release date and category.

Instead, I just have a folder for movies, a folder for each TV series and a folder for each producer/distributor of golden age animated shorts, that's good enough for me.

Oh and focusing on the media that is actually good and/or at least in my wheelhouse of interest helps in ensuring there's some space left on my 22TB hard drive, instead of downloading everything just because.

Over the last 2 years, I've noticed that I spend WAY more time carefully cataloguing my collections of digital media (games, anime) than actually experiencing those media.

Collecting is the fun part. Its the keeping up to date, that is the mindboggling dull part.

If you collect good comic series, well, ... trying to keep track of new releases that you want to read is annoying. Same with web series or web novels. Note: Non-US (EU) comic series are much harder to keep track off, as most programs focus on US comics.

It becomes more with it once other people can consume the media. My son prefers streaming over my carefully curated collection, but he does say lost appreciate not having commercials.

Also, his taste in media sucks. Just have to say it.

Maybe I wanted to be the next Marion Stokes. Have you considered that?

I only organize what I have 'consumed' and it's totally worth it. Would be kinda hard to organize media not knowing what it is, so the problem of "doing something that's not enjoyable, instead of experiencing the media I've collected" is not something I have experienced :D

You want to live filthy and unorganized that's on you, don't assume we don't enjoy what we do.

Just because you burnt out doesn't mean we're going to collectively pat you on the back for telling us what most of us already know.

Ps. archiving with no intention of passing it on is the real time wasted, and that's on you, why should they go to waste just because you're gone?

Why collect/horde the amounts of data we consume and not index it up? Getting it is the easy part. Getting it Indexed, Data'd, Tagged, etc. is the hard part. We live for this!

Time spent obsessively cataloguing = time not spent obsessively downloading new stuff

On the contrary, don't be like me and lose vintage footage from simpler times that I can never get back due to sheer incompetence and laziness. Thankfully I still have my memories, for now.

A good reminder! I find parts of my organizing relaxing, but there's definitely a line to be aware of.

I catalouge things because it is enjoyable and sometimes I rediscover things that I didn't know it exists. But I will take your warning.

Collecting things as a hobby has been a thing since forever.

Collecting stamps, collecting coins etc.

How exactly do you "enjoy" a stamp or coin or a whatever collection?

What? GET OUUUUT!

I kid, I like putting things in there places it is sleek easy and professional when you need something in a time sensitive matter.

Nah. Life is short = do what makes you happy and feels good. If that’s cataloging your data then so be it.

I see both sides of your experience as valid. On the one hand, as a person who admittedly can be cluttered in real life, there’s something therapeutic and empowering about taming a digital collection into something logical and structured, often to a level of detail others might call me crazy for.

At the same time, it’s gotta be a healthy mix for me, between cataloging and actually enjoying the collection. I look at a perfectly catalogued data set of any sort as a long-term goal, but try to keep it from ever being too time-consuming all at once

Hard disagree. If you have fun in any aspects of a hobby, it's never a 'waste of life', even if some might find that part boring.

I spent like half a work day maybe 4 hours or so ensuring my collection of all the Futurama episodes were in order of production which I opted in for because its not really super serialized and it all turned out well, I then separated I believe season 4, 5 and 3 because season 5 was mostly produced for season 4 but some episodes were produced for season 3, then I spent the entire time watching it putting each episode into a tier list of about 7 categories ranging from best to worst with inbetween-ey emotions supplementing the other tiers, I still include a file for season 5 because it technically does exist but it really shouldn't if we are going by my production date system.

I also watched every Aqua Teen Hunger Force episode and separated all episodes which were unsuitable for my girlfriend into a separate folder which I put on a USB drive because I wanted to share with her something from my childhood even though she couldn't watch a majority of the episodes (Blood makes her faint and needles and alot of the hyperviolent gags in that show. She loves meatwad though)

I plan on doing the same tier list thing I did for Futurama but for Adventure Time(I expect a lot of heavy hitters) and maybe Steven Universe(I expect as much disappointment as when I first watched this show.), in short: I like making lists and compiling information.

I am happy about your change op, meantime if others feels pointless in Their sorting fun, please try to find community. We have all type of members - dragons which have huge space and keeps it online, ants enjoying working on data sets to keep them tidy and neat and bees adding new stuff for ants to work on!

You think you are wasting your time and not enjoying what you are doing. Sounds like a personal problem. I bet many people here enjoy a nice and tidy collection. Whether it is a waste of time is up for debate, but what good is your collection that you say you are going to continue to add to, if you can't find anything in it?

This is me exactly. I love organizing my media, and idon't think it's a waste of my time. It's like people who enjoy gaming, or doing puzzles, just doing what they enjoy. It also helps with OCD.

Well don’t get too lazy. For media I do almost nothing except rename titles in Plex and fix issues as I see them. I transcode automatically with tdarr but if it fails on a file I don’t look into it. I’m pretty lazy and disorganized so having tools like radarr is nice. The bad part about me being lazy and disorganized is I tend to not organize my personal files.

I just spent 8 hours today moving my own data around structuring it in a way that hopefully makes sense. I have probably another 3 weekends of reorganization to do. I build my server years ago to store all my own data but because it was so disorganized it I basically just gave up besides setting up backups for my devices. I didn’t bother to collect all the data from the previous hard-drives that I used for backups and media storage. I do photography and videography as a hobby so I have a few of 4TB HDD filled with just my own footage. None of it’s backed up and it’s getting to that point that the disks will start failing if I don’t get organized and back stuff up appropriately.

My plan right now is to build a good foundation. Bring everything in just so I can see how much storage I need to build a second server to actually back it all up correctly. I estimate I have 15 TB of data across all the drives but I’m sure there is duplicates somewhere. Manually going through it all is going to be a PITA. I wish I had done a better job of keeping up with it over the years.

Learn to code and automate all the renaming, transcoding and cataloguing. In the long way you save time with that.

I recognize this. What I find myself doing is that I also enjoy doing the docker compose and setup/operation instead of actually using the application.

Life is to short worring about having the wrong kind of fun experience.

I figure we’ll have Ai agents to organise files in 10 years

I'll listen to a ripped Libby book while I catalog the other thousand

Counter-PSA: Life is short. If you enjoy obsessively catalogueing your data collections, go right ahead. People of the future will probably appreciate it.

Regards,

A person who dislikes cataloguing things

Found the alistic

Yeah I think that might be the case for all of us. The data hoarding part is the enjoyable part. The dopamine hit from providing someone with files that have been scrubbed from the public internet is something no drug could ever match.

I've had the same thoughts many times. It is a never-ending work in progress.

Problem #1: I like too much, but I will never have enough time to watch/read/play/listen to it all in my lifetime. I need to be more selective with the content and keep only what I love and start deleting the average/OK stuff.

Problem #2: Most of the re-encoding done is because of a constant struggle with HD space.

I will keep organizing and tidying (sometimes it's relaxing and fun), but I will try to do the bare minimum just so that I'm able to find stuff again and not have it too messy. I need to spend the time enjoying the content rather than just organizing forever.

I'm obsessed with organising the data in my system. I just can't navigate without it. It's one of the best practices. I love cataloguing all the data.

And here's the thing, i absolutely hate it when people don't have a proper organisation in their system. I've seen people with random shit in their downloads folder and they have no idea what's that junk. I could never live like that. They just drop anything, anywhere without any problem.

I'm so obsessed that I even categorise my browser tabs and bookmarks too. I simply can't live without it. It's amazing.

Also, side note. It could be completely coincidental but the most unorganised people are usually Mac users. They always have absolutely random and countless shit on their system. It's not like Windows users are any better with stupid level of desktop shortcuts but, Mac users are crazy on another level.

Absolutely agree with you.

I've rebuilt my collection 4x so far in the last 15 years. 1000+ titles each time. 2 were due to hardware failure, one was ransomware, and last current rebuild is due to losing access to gsuite drive.

My current thinking is "f this". Paying for the streaming platforms is enough to satisfy my media consumption. At this age and stage in life, I barely have time to watch anything anyways. YouTube is my go to and I ended up paying for premium.