A file naming convention is a systematic method for naming files. Your file naming convention will always be your most powerful and easy method for organising and retrieving your documents. You want to get this right the first time, so it is important to invest enough time to think about this carefully.
A consistent and descriptive file naming convention serves many purposes, often related to branding, information management, and usability. The overall goal of intentional file naming is to increase readability in file names. It empowers people new to the content to navigate files more easily, makes searching and finding documents easier by having our filenames reflect file contents, and guides file authors to develop each document around a single, concrete purpose, which reduces clutter. More concretely, it allows you to:
Know the content of a document without opening it.
Retrieve and filter documents very quickly using the search/filter function of your computer.
Store documents in a single folder without losing their context, if you need to.
Find and identify documents even if they are no longer in their original folder.
Easily browse long lists of files to inventory or check for missing documents.
Manage documents more easily on your website (often content management systems store documents in a single “uploads” directory).