Okay confession time–if I have a really important file that I think I might need to access more than once or twice in the next year, I’m going to send that file as an attachment to myself and place it in my archives folder. Over the past year or so, I’ve heard several techies (and wannabes) claim that this is a bad practice; email is for email, file systems are for files.
Bullshit.
1. File systems suck at locating important files quickly.
I have access to several networked file shares at work, they quickly degenerate into disorganized messes. The problem with modern file shares is they follow the same folder/file model of physical filing systems. But a given file may have different contexts and meanings over time. I might have a file that I need at one point because it contains financial data about a system, but a future point in time because it contains technical data about a system. Oftentimes the directory structure that made sense a year ago is unfathomable when you actually need it now.
With email, however, the subject and the body of itself become metadata about the file that make it easy to find quickly. For example, with every car I have owned for the past 10 years, I have emailed myself a PDF copy of the owner’s manual. The subject line of the email contains the make, model and year of the car, and the body contains additional information about the car.
Same thing with contracts or reports. Rather than relying on the directory structure to do all the work, I can use keywords that make sense to me to describe the report so that the next time I need to access it, it is again just seconds away.
2. Email is forever
I’ve been through numerous different file servers, project management systems that were supposed to enable teams to upload and share files, etc. Many of those systems were proprietary and were abandoned one by one, with varying abilities to meaningfully extract and retain important files.
Because it is such a long-standing standard, retaining/maintaining email over time has been much easier. Oftentimes I will find myself in situations where someone is asking “why did we make that decision 5 years ago again?” and nobody knows where that key report about the decision is anymore. Well, except for me that is.
Oh, and I’m not even going to use the S-word in this, but if you feel inclined to bring it up:
3. Email is mobile
This is changing, but not fast enough. It is still a pain in the butt to access important files on mobile devices, such as my phone. Again, when I get a text that needs an answer right away regardless of where I am, it is a lot easier to do a search on my email from my device than any other method I’ve tried.
Of course, there are some areas where I would use a traditional file storage:
- For any file that is still being actively edited or revised.
- For any file that only needs to be referenced infrequently (less than once per year).
- For any file that is simply too large for contemporary email systems.
But for high value files that I might need to consult fairly frequently, I’m going to store them in email and damn your file systems.