BITS Online Chapter One: File and Folder Management

Contents
Chapter 1 File and Folder Management.................................................................. 2

1.1 Introduction to File and Folder Management: ............................................ 2

1.2 Open File Explorer: ................................................................................ 2

Exercise 1.2.1 Create a New Folder: ....................................................... 3

Exercise 1.2.2 Create Multiple Nested Folders: ......................................... 4

Exercise 1.2.3 Deleting a Folder: ............................................................ 5

Exercise 1.2.4 Delete Saturday and Sunday: ............................................ 6

1.3 Copying Folders: ................................................................................... 6

Exercise 1.3.1 Complete the Folder Structure: ......................................... 7

1.4 Moving a Folder: .................................................................................... 7

Exercise 1.4.1 - Move a Folder: ................................................................. 7

1.5 Place a File in a Folder: .......................................................................... 8

Recap: ....................................................................................................... 9

1.6 File Security:......................................................................................... 9

1.7 Email Yourself: ...................................................................................... 9

Exercise 1.7.1 - Email a Word Document to Yourself:................................... 9

1.8 Google Drive: ...................................................................................... 10

Exercise 1.8.1 Backup a Document to Google Drive: ............................... 10

Recap: ..................................................................................................... 12

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BITS Online Chapter One: File and Folder Management

Chapter 1 File and Folder Management

1.1 Introduction to File and Folder Management:

Files are the documents we create on computers. A Word document is a file. An Excel
spreadsheet is a file. A photograph stored on a computer is a file. As you can see, there
are many other types of files. However, when it comes to computers we use the collective
term of file for describing them all.

Folders are the named locations where we store our files on a computer. Just as you might
keep your socks in one drawer and your pants in another, folders can be thought of as
drawers for storing our files. You may be familiar with a folder called My documents or
Documents which can be found on most computers.

Could you imagine the chaos if all the students in your school were all located in one big
room all day? Your teachers would never find you and your school would not function
properly. Thankfully your school is divided up into classrooms where you and your teachers
can go for lessons. The same can be said of computers. Computers work best if we
organise all our information (files) into folders. Computers allow us to store our files in
different folders so that we can keep track of them. We can create new folders to place
our files in, as well as remove (delete) folders that we no longer require. We can also copy
and move files and folders to new locations. These file and folder management functions
are carried out by using File Explorer.

In this chapter you will learn how to create, copy, move and delete folders as well as how
to save a document to a specific folder. You will also learn how to backup your files and
folders through an email service provider (e.g. Gmail) and to the cloud (e.g. Google Drive).

1.2 Open File Explorer:

Click on the File Explorer icon on your computer. If you cannot find it type File Explorer
into your computers the search bar (a spy-glass icon normally located on the bottom-left
of the computer screen).

File Explorer displays all the files and folders on a computer. As a general rule, all the main
folders on a computer are displayed on the left-hand side of the screen, and the contents
of the currently selected (highlighted) folder are displayed on the right-hand side.

Take a few minutes to familiarise yourself with File Explorer. Click into some of the folders
and subfolders (a folder within a folder) and note the screen display change. Use the

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Search Quick access (top-right of the File Explorer screen) to type in the name of a
file/folder to locate it.

Exercise 1.2.1 Create a New Folder:

In this exercise you will create a folder in the Documents/My documents folder.

1. Click into the Documents folder. Depending on your computer, this folder may be
called My documents.

Place the mouse pointer over

a blank (white) area

folder.
Diagram 1.1 Creating a new folder

2. Place the mouse pointer over a blank (white) area in the Documents folder and
Right-Click the mouse. The following menu options appear.

3. Click New and then select Folder from the new menu. The following screen
appears;

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Diagram 1.2 Naming a new folder

4. In the New Folder area type in School Work and press the Return/Enter key.
5. You have now successfully created a folder called School Work.

Exercise 1.2.2 Create Multiple Nested Folders:

In this exercise you will create multiple (many) new folders nested within each other.
Based on the instructions above, complete the following tasks.

1. Click into your School Work folder.

2. Create 12 new folders in your School Work folder, one for each month of the
year. See diagram 1.3 below. Do not worry if the folders do not appear in the
order that you would expect them to.
3. In your folder named January, create six new folders called Week1, Week2,
Week3, Week4, Week5 and Week6.
4. In your folder named Week1, create 7 new folders one for each day of the
week.

By now your folder structure should look something like the following;

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Diagram 1.3 Nested folders

Exercise 1.2.3 Deleting a Folder:

I think that most of us would agree that, while there might sometimes be five weeks in a
month, there is definitely never six. Therefore, in this exercise you will remove the folder
called Week6 from your January folder;

1. Click into the folder January. To open a folder, double-click its name in File
Explorer or right-click its name and select open from the pop-up menu.
2. Highlight the folder Week6 by either scrolling up/down to it or by single-clicking
it.

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3. With folder Week6 highlighted (selected), right-click the mouse and select Delete
from the popup menu. Depending on the Windows settings/version on your
computer, you may be asked to confirm the file/folder deletion.

Exercise 1.2.4 Delete Saturday and Sunday:

As there is normally no school on weekends, delete the Saturday and Sunday folders
that you created in Week1 in January.

1.3 Copying Folders:

As we discovered in the last exercise, there are at least five weeks in every month. But,
to complete our folder structure of the school year we do not want to have to create every
Week folder over and over again within each Month folder, and then every Day folder
within every Week folder.

Thankfully Windows (the name of the operating system on most PCs) allows us to quickly
and easily copy folders;

1. Select (highlight) all the Week folders in January.

a. To highlight multiple folders you can either tick the
tick-boxes in front of the folder name or hold down
the SHIFT key and scroll over the folders we want to
select.
b. Ensure that the folders are all highlighted before continuing.
2. Right-click the mouse and chose the copy option.

3. This will place the Week folders into the working memory (RAM) of the
computer and allow you to copy them to another location. It is important to
note that copying a file or folder does not remove it from its original location.
4. Click into the February folder.
5. Click on a blank area of the February folder and right-click the mouse.

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6. Select the paste option from the pop-up menu. This will paste the Week folders
that you copied from January into February. Remember, the folders still exist
in the January folder. Also, since we previously set up the Days folders in Week1
of January, they have also been copied.

Exercise 1.3.1 Complete the Folder Structure:

Complete the folder structure so that every Week folder has Days folders and every Month
folder has Weeks folders;

1. Copy the Day folders from January/Week1 into each of the other Week folders
in January.
2. Copy the Week folders from January to February. As your Weeks folders already
exist in February, you may be asked to confirm your action.
3. Continue to copy the Weeks folders into each of the other Month folders.

1.4 Moving a Folder:

When moving folders, the following important points must be remembered;

1. As its name suggests, the action of moving a folder removes the folder from its
original location and moves it to a new location.
2. All files and subfolders (folders within a folder) are also moved.
3. Be extremely careful when moving folders. Information can be lost or misplaced. A
better practice is to copy a folder to its new location and then delete the original.
This will have the same result as moving a folder but provides a level of safety if
things go wrong.

However, in the following exercise you will move a folder.

Exercise 1.4.1 - Move a Folder:

1. Click into the folder March/Week3/Monday.

2. Create a folder called Detention.
3. Move the folder Detention to October/Week4/Friday by following the
instructions from the above exercises.

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1.5 Place a File in a Folder:

In general terms, a file is any single item that is stored in a computer. A Word document
is a file, as is a .jpeg (picture), a .mp4 (music file), etc. In this exercise you will create a
Microsoft Word document (file) and save it in the folder;

School Work/ October/Week3/Wednesday

You will learn more about Microsoft Word in chapter 3, but for the moment;

1. Open MS Word.
2. Type the following into a new blank document;

Dear Sir/Miss,
May I please be excused from detention on Thursday?

3. To save your Word document into the October/Week3/Wednesday folder;

a. Click the File menu on the top-left of the Word screen.
b. Click the Save As option. A window similar to the following appears 1;

4. Locate the October/Week3/Wednesday folder so that its name appears in

the text box at the top of the window;

1 The Save As screen in Microsoft Office 365 (2016) is different from the example shown. However,
the process of saving a file is the same. To see the screen shown above, click Browse on the Save
As screen in Office 365.

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5. Rename your Word document by overwriting the suggested filename with

Letter to Teacher;

6. As you can see, the file type defaults to Word Document. Press the Save
button.

Recap:

So far you have learned how to create, copy, move and delete folders as well as how to
save a Word document to a specific folder.

1.6 File Security:

File (document) security is a very important aspect of using computers. Sometimes things
go wrong and our files and documents can either get deleted by mistake or go missing.
While there are many ways to prevent this from happening, the simplest thing to do is to
backup your files and documents regularly by either emailing them to yourself or saving
them to the Google Cloud.

1.7 Email Yourself:

The simplest way to never lose a document is to email it to yourself. That way your
document(s) will always be in your email account and you can access them from any
computer, tablet or smartphone in the world. This tutorial uses Gmail for explaining email
services. Dont worry if you use another email services provider as the function of emailing
a document to yourself (or to another person) is standard.

Exercise 1.7.1 - Email a Word Document to Yourself:

1. Log into your email account.
2. Click the option to create a new email.
3. Enter your own email address in the Recipient box.
4. Add a Subject (title) to your email and some text in the body.

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5. Click the Attach a File option or icon (this is a paperclip icon in Gmail);

6. Locate the document you wish to back up (Letter to Teacher) and press Send.
7. The document will now be available to retrieve from your email account if needs
be.

1.8 Google Drive:

Google Drive is a cloud storage service offered free to all Google/Gmail account holders.
A cloud in computer terms is simply a network (group) of computers that companies like
Microsoft, Google, and others use to store lots of files (data). If you have a Gmail account
you automatically have access to Google Drive.

Exercise 1.8.1 Backup a Document to Google Drive:

1. From within your Google/Gmail account click the Google apps icon located on the
top right of the screen.

Google apps icon

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2. The following options appear;

3. Select the Google Drive icon ( ). The following screen appears;

Diagram 1.4 Google Drive

4. Google Drive allows you to create folders and subfolders. However, for this exercise
simply save your Word document Letter to Teacher to the My Drive folder in
Google Drive;
a. Click the New button and select File Upload.
b. Locate the Word document Letter to Teacher in the popup window and
select open to upload it to Google Drive. The Word document now appears
in your My Drive folder in Google Drive;

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Diagram 1.5 Letter to Teacher in My Drive on Google Drive

Note: Google Drive also allows users to share files and folders with other Google users2.

Recap:
In this section you have learned how to backup your files and folders through email and
Google Drive.

This concludes Chapter 1 File and Folder Management.

2
Click this link to learn more about Google Drive; Google Drive Tutorial Video.

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