A simple folder structure for photo and video projects

Most file chaos comes from one thing: every project is organized a little differently. When each job has its own layout, finding the right export three months later turns into a search party. The fix is boring but powerful — give every project the exact same shape.

One project, one home

Start each job as a single project folder named with the date and client, for example 2026-07-08_Smith-Wedding. Sorting by name now sorts by date, and nothing lives in a random place on the desktop.

• 01_Ingest — raw camera cards, copied and verified
• 02_Selects — the picks you actually work from
• 03_Working — edits, project files, and scratch exports
• 04_Delivery — final files sent to the client
• 05_Archive — what gets moved to long-term storage

Keep active work and archives apart

Active projects need speed; finished projects need protection. Mixing them slows you down and makes backups harder. Once a job is delivered, its archive copy moves out of the fast working drive and into managed long-term storage.

This is exactly the structure CreatorVault Systems sets up for studios — the same shape on every project, so the whole team always knows where things live.