this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2023
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The only issue I see with paperless-ngx is that you cannot use an existing folder structure, or has that changed in the meantime?
I would like to access the documents via paperless-ngx but would also like to preserve and continue to use my existing folder structure, especially to make retrieval of documents easier for someone else than me in case of emergency or if I cannot use paperless-ngx for whatever reason.
I have made the experience that following along a clearly defined logical folder structure is easier for someone who hasn't spend ours creating the structure themselves or doesn't know about paperless-ngx.
While it doesn’t use a fixed folder structure, you can decide the folder structure for each file based on any attribute. So all 2023 receipts for car a can go to “car a/receipts/2023” or “receipts/2023/car a” of whatever you wish. Really flexible! And if you change idea, you change the scheme and all the files are moved where they belong!
There are “storage partitions” (if I’m remembering the wording correctly) that let you put documents into physical storage locations, but there’s not a formal folder structure. For me I constantly found myself needing documents in two places (eg: property tax bill in both the folder for my house as well as my annual income tax filing, since I want all the documents for that together too). Formal folder structure was too limiting for me. Having things tagged just works better for me and eliminated my problem of having to commit to a folder structure that I wouldn’t like next year.
Absolutely agree and that's where paperless-ngx will shine. But for my documents I prefer a tool agnostic (and therefore future proof) way of storing. In case of multiple places, where a document could go, I always think "what's the most likely way I will be looking for this document in the future?".