University of South Florida

Digital Commons @ University of

South Florida

FUNDAMENTALS OF INFORMATION The Modernization of Digital Information

TECHNOLOGY: Textbook – English Technology

1-1-2023

Chapter 06 File Management

Shambhavi Roy

Clinton Daniel
University of South Florida, [email protected]

Manish Agrawal
University of South Florida, [email protected]

Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/dit_tb_eng

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Roy, Shambhavi; Daniel, Clinton; and Agrawal, Manish, "Chapter 06 File Management" (2023).
FUNDAMENTALS OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: Textbook – English. 4.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/dit_tb_eng/4

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File Management

CHAPTER CONTENTS
Overview 78
Why Manage Files? 79
Using File Managing Utilities 81
Opening the File Managers 81
File Manager Components 82
File and Folder Properties 84
Names 84
Parts of File Names 85
Locating Files 87
Navigation 88
File Paths 88
Search 89
System Generated Folders 92
File Operations 94
Renaming Files and Folders 94
Copying Files 95
Moving Files 97
Deleting Files 99
Restoring Files 99
File Compression and Decompression 101
File Backup 102
Cloud-Based File Management 103
Task or Activity Manager 105
Chapter Terms and Definitions 108
Chapter Case: Ian’s Research Paper File 110

Chapter 6—File Management 77

 Basically, our goal is to organize the world’s information and to make it universally
accessible and useful.

—Larry Page, co-founder of Google

Overview
File management is about creating an organized structure to store information on your computer
for easy retrieval and use. As more and more of our information becomes digital and ends up in our
digital devices—e.g., school assignments on laptops, photos on smartphones, emails in the cloud—it
becomes increasingly important to create an organized structure to store this information, so it is
available when needed. After all, what is the point of taking that keepsake picture with a friend if you
can’t find it later when you need it?
Think of file management as a small-scale/personal version of Google. Google’s vision statement
is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”61 Both file
management and Google involve organizing and managing large amounts of data, even if the
methods are different. File management involves developing good habits in naming and organizing
files on a computer. Google uses complex algorithms to organize the vast amounts of data that it
collects from around the world. The end goals are the same. Both file management and Google aim
to make data easily accessible later. As ChatGPT puts it, “in many ways, file management is doing for
your computer what Google aims to do for the Internet.”62
Taking a few minutes to learn how your computer organizes files and to develop good file management
practices may be one of the best investments you make in learning to use your computer effectively.
This chapter will show you how. Experienced computer users consider their file manager as the
starting point of any work. Microsoft computers have File Explorer for file management. Similarly,
Finder—also known as Mac Desktop Experience—is the default file manager on Mac computers. The
icon for Finder63 is “Happy Mac,”64( ).65
Information management in the computer context is called file management because all information
on computers is made available to end users as files. Files have properties such as names, last modified
date, size, etc. These properties help with information location and retrieval. In the rest of this chapter,
we use information management and file management interchangeably.

61 “About Google,” https://about.google/ (accessed June 2023).

62 “How is file management analogous to what Google does?” https://chat.openai.com/chat
(accessed June 2023).
63 For more on the origins of some of these icons, you may like this article in Quartz magazine
about Susan Kare, the designer for the original Mac icons, https://qz.com/1666437/mac-icon-
designer-susan-kare-explains-the-inspiration-for-her-designs (accessed June 2023).
64 “Finder (software),” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finder_(software) (accessed June
2023).
65 “Get to know the Finder on your Mac,” https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201732 (accessed
June 2023).

78 Chapter 6—File Management

Why Manage Files?
To have a sense of balance and order and to be
efficient in your home, you need to have some
basic organization skills to find what you need in
the jumble of things. For example, look at some of
the many things you have in your home: table lamp,
desk, paper clips, speakers, camera, side tables,
fans, shirts, pants, towels, toasters, vacuum cleaner,
sewing kits, hangers, shoes, watches, keyboards,
bags of chips, bottles of syrup, saltshakers, tea bags,
rolling pins, and coffee makers. Do you instantly
know where to go if you want a clean towel? A good example of home organization is a well
organized kitchen pantry.
Would you go to the bedroom looking for a kitchen
knife? Not unless you have some sinister plan for which you hid the kitchen knife under the mattress,
right? Imagine if everything you have in your home were to get placed in a pile in the center of your
living room. Would you be able to grab a can opener and a tin of chickpeas from the heap to prepare
dinner? Probably not. It might be easier for you to go to a store and buy food than spend an hour
looking for the can opener and chickpeas.
Having a well-organized home and pantry will not only save time but also energy and money. A place
for everything, and everything in its place, as the saying goes.
A file management system does for your computer what home organization does for your physical
items at home. File management involves creating folders and subfolders for information, categorizing
your information appropriately, and saving information as files in the right folders with a consistent
file-naming convention. Having a good naming convention for files and folders is very helpful to
identify what’s inside. Imagine having to open a bunch of files to figure out which one has the
homework questions for a math assignment due tomorrow. You could easily end up spending more
time searching for the file than you might’ve spent doing the assignment.
The technology industry has spent considerable effort trying to understand how users work with
information and has attempted to make it as simple as possible to perform common operations. By
following users around their offices, early researchers found that file management involves not only
information retrieval, but also information reminder. Users keep documents on their desks not just to
find them, but also to remind them of tasks that need to do.66 Researchers also found that correctly
classifying information was challenging for most users (e.g., for any given school year, should you
have folders like assignments, notes, or should you have folders like Math, English etc.). As a result of
this complexity, users tend to dump information into unorganized piles. These findings have led to
metaphors such as “desktops,” designed to facilitate reminders and automatic classifications by date,
file name, and other parameters. We explore the common file management utilities and operations
in the rest of this chapter.
Since file management is a core function of an operating system, file management utilities come
bundled with the operating system. While we focus on the file management utilities in the common

66 Malone, T., “How Do People Organize Their Desks? Implications for the Design of Office
Information Systems,” ACM Transactions on Office Information Systems, 1(1), 99-112 (1983).

Chapter 6—File Management 79

operating systems–Windows (File Explorer) (see Figure 27) and MacOS (Finder) (see Figure 28)—other
operating systems offer similar utilities and support similar operations. For example, Nautilus, the file
manager in Linux, looks and feels much like the file managers you see in this chapter.

FIGURE 27 — Windows File Explorer.

FIGURE 28 — Mac Finder.

80 Chapter 6—File Management

Using File Managing Utilities
The most common file operations are to create, store (save), find, open, email, move, and delete files.
You may occasionally need to do bulk operations on files to avoid wasting time by handling them one
at a time. For example, you may want to reorganize all your music files, so they are grouped by artist
and album rather than by the year of release. Or you may decide that you no longer need your 7th
grade notes and projects and want to delete them all to make space for new assignments. It would
be efficient to select a group of files and perform bulk operations on this group of files rather than try
to move, copy, or delete them one at a time. File management supports all these common tasks. In
addition, file management also supports restoring files deleted by accident.
As mentioned earlier, Microsoft’s file manager is called File Explorer. In versions of Windows before
Windows 10, File Explorer was called Windows Explorer.67 The first File Explorer was released in 1995
as Windows Explorer with Windows 95. The file manager on MacOS is called Finder and was released
in 1984. The capabilities of these file managers have improved substantially over time.

Opening the File Managers

On Windows, you can launch File Explorer by clicking the Windows icon () and typing File Explorer
in the search bar (see Figure 29). To open File Explorer, you can also use the keyboard shortcut, press
E while holding the Windows key, ( + E). On the Mac, you can open the Finder by clicking the Finder
icon in the Dock ( ), or by using the shortcut, Command + Option + Space Bar (⌘ + ⌥ + ␣).
Given how useful file managers are, most users find it useful to have a quick way to access file
managers. The most effective way to set this up on Windows is to press the Windows key () or click
the Windows icon () on the desktop, scroll through the list of programs to Windows System, expand
the group by clicking on it to find the icon for File Explorer. You can now right-click the File Explorer
icon, select “More” and select “Pin to Taskbar.” The File Explorer icon will now show up at the bottom of
your desktop, and you can click on the icon anytime you want to open File Explorer. On the Mac, the
Finder icon is typically located in the Dock by default.

67 Please do not confuse File Explorer with Internet Explorer, which was the earliest version of the
web browser made by Microsoft and was used for surfing the Internet.

Chapter 6—File Management 81

 FIGURE 29 — Searching File Explorer on Windows.

File Manager Components

When File Explorer opens, you will see a “Quick Access” section on the left-hand side (the first box
in Figure 30). Here you’ll find your frequently used folders, including “Desktop,” “Documents,” and
“Downloads.” If you have installed any cloud storage service (e.g., DropBox), you may also see a link
to that folder in your “Quick Access” menu. On the right (Section 3 in Figure 30), you will see all your
recently accessed folders and files.
Click on any folder on the left side of File Explorer (sections 1 or 2 in Figure 30) and the contents of
that folder will appear on the right-hand side (section 3).
One item on the left in File Explorer is of particular interest—”This PC.” Clicking “This PC” (highlighted
as section 2 in Figure 30) brings up the storage layout of your PC, including the internal and external
disk drives. If you plug in a USB storage, a smartphone, or smartwatch, it will show up as a separate
device in this section.

82 Chapter 6—File Management

 FIGURE 30 — File Explorer components.

Device-Centric vs Storage-Centric Views in File Managers

While they do the same task, the Windows’ File Explorer and the Mac’s Finder
have slightly different views of the computer. While File Explorer is storage-
centric, Finder and all versions of Unix are device-centric. On Windows, each
storage device gets a unique letter as a top-level identifier. By convention, the
hard drive with the operating system gets the “C:” identifier. The next storage
device gets “D:” and so on. If you connect your smartphone to your Windows
PC, it may get the “P:” top-level identifier.
On Macs, the entire computer, with all attached storage devices, is seen as
one top-level entity, identified by the “/” label. All attached storage is said to
be mounted on the computer and are typically accessible under the “/mount”
folder. Finder provides a friendly user interface to simplify locating these
external storage devices.

Chapter 6—File Management 83

File and Folder Properties
A file is the basic chunk of information available to computer users and applications.68 A folder is a
container for a group of files and other folders. Files and folders have several properties that allow
users and applications to locate and use the correct files and folders.

Names
Perhaps the most important property of a file or folder is the name. All files and folders are identified
by human readable names. File names should help you easily identify the contents of the file. This is
like labeling a notebook to be able to tell what’s in it. Before a file or folder can be created, it needs
a name. To simplify the user experience, all applications have default methods to assign file names,
even if the user does not provide one. For example, Microsoft’s Office Suite uses the first few letters
in the file to create the default file name. Image programs assign default file names such as “Untitled.
png.” As you can see, while these file names allow the files to be created, they are not very useful
to find the file later. For this reason, one best practice in computer use is to develop a file naming
convention and to use it consistently.
For files that only you are likely to use, a simple convention of naming files by their title or purpose is
sufficient. For example, “hamlet_shakespeare.pdf” would be a suitable name for a personal copy of the
public domain version69 of the famous play. “assn1_english_classx.docx” would be a suitable name for
your first assignment in the English Class in grade X. If you are likely to have multiple copies of Hamlet,
you may like to disambiguate the files by adding the source of these files, e.g., “hamlet_shakespeare_
gutenberg.pdf” and “hamlet_shakespeare_w3.pdf.” Remember, the goal of the file name is to help
you quickly locate and identify the file years later, when the context is no longer fresh in your mind.70
For files that are likely to be used by multiple users, it is useful to develop a convention that makes it easy
for all users to quickly organize and locate the files. A simple convention can be to include the project
name, group/subsection name, and the name of the author. For example, if your English teacher asks
you to submit assignments, it will greatly help the teacher locate and grade the assignments, if each
student adopted a convention to include their own names as well as the name of the assignment in
their submission. For example, “assn1_english_classx_johndoe.docx,”“assn1_english_classx_janedoe.

68 According to Wikipedia, the word “file” to refer to a basic chunk of information on a computer
comes from the earliest days of computers in the 1940s. Program instructions were written on
punch cards and all cards associated with a program were carefully kept in a file. Similarly, the
data associated with a program was also written on punch cards kept in a separate file. You can
imagine computer operators using language such as “load the program from the file.” This name
has stuck. “Computer file,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_file (accessed
June 2023).
69 E.g., William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Project Gutenberg, https://www.gutenberg.
org/ebooks/1524 (accessed June 2023).
70 You may have noticed that the examples use lower cases for all file names. This is a matter of
personal preference. Many webservers are configured to be case sensitive and when files are
to be uploaded to the web, it is often easier to just type the file names in lower case. Since the
authors frequently upload files to a case sensitive webserver, they use lower cases for simplicity.
Develop and follow your own convention for file names.

84 Chapter 6—File Management

docx” and so on. This naming convention will also help the teacher pull up the assignment a month
later if a student had a question about their grade.71
The file name should not be too long and should avoid characters that have special meanings for the
operating system. These are called reserved characters. Long file names can be difficult to read in file
managers. Consider separating different sections of the file name with an underscore to make it easy
to read, as we have done in the examples.
Since your file could be read by users in different operating systems, each with its own set of special
characters,72 it is generally best to stick to letters, numbers, and underscores (_) in file names. The
special characters you should avoid in file names include the following:73
< (less than);
> (greater than);
: (colon);
“ (double quote);
/ (forward slash);
\ (backslash);
| (vertical bar or pipe);
? (question mark);
* (asterisk).
We also recommend avoiding spaces in file names, e.g., “hamlet_shakespeare.pdf.” is preferable to
“hamlet shakespeare.pdf.” While spaces are not fatal, web browsers often replace spaces with “%20”74
and it is possible to miss the characters following a space if they get hidden by column separators in
file managers. Spaces are just enough of a nuisance that avoiding them is usually a good idea.

Parts of File Names

A file name has two parts. The actual name you chose for the file and a short name identifying the file
type. The two parts are separated by a “.” The short name is known as the extension. For example, in
“hamlet_shakespeare.pdf”, “hamlet_shakespeare” is the file name and “pdf” is the file extension.

71 For more detailed examples, including the file naming conventions used at Disney, please see
“Jason Boone, “Speed Up Your Workflow with Good File Naming Practices,” https://blog.frame.
io/2018/10/22/file-naming-conventions/ (accessed June 2023).
72 The rules for Windows are in the article “Naming Files, Paths, and Namespaces,” https://learn.
microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/fileio/naming-a-file (accessed June 2023).
73 “What characters are forbidden in Windows and Linux directory names?” https://stackoverflow.
com/questions/1976007/what-characters-are-forbidden-in-windows-and-linux-directory-
names (accessed June 2023).
74 Learn more about this here: “%20 in URL—What Does it Mean? [Answered],” https://www.
raymond.cc/blog/decoding-percent-with-numbers-encoding-in-urls/ (accessed June 2023).

Chapter 6—File Management 85

The operating system uses the file extension to
determine the application program required to
open the file. This is called file associations and is
used in all modern operating systems.75 This use
of the file extension is like peeking inside your
kitchen pantry and being able to distinguish a box
of Cheerios from Rice Krispies without opening
all cereal boxes. For example, your computer
will typically use Microsoft Word to open a word
document by looking at the “.doc” or “.docx”
extension. Similarly, your computer can recognize
an image file by recognizing the “jpg,” “png,” “gif,” or
other extensions that identify them as images and The cover should tell you what’s inside.
display the file using a program that can handle
images.
For user convenience, file managers typically hide file extensions. However, it is useful to see them if
you prefer to have greater control over your files. If you don’t see file name extensions when you view
files in File Explorer, do the following:
1) Open File Explorer
2) Under “View,” select the “File name extensions” check box as shown in Figure 31.

FIGURE 31 — Check here to enable file name extensions in File Explorer.

75 A good article on file associations is Tim Fisher’s “How to Change File Associations in Windows,”
https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-change-file-associations-in-windows-2624477 (accessed
June 2023).

86 Chapter 6—File Management

 Extension File type
aac, adt, adts, cda, m4a, mp3, wav Audio Files
mdb, accdb Microsoft Access Database File
(before and after Access 2007)
bmp, gif, jpg, jpeg, png Image Files
csv Comma-separated File
doc, docx Microsoft Word Document
exe Executable Program File
htm, html Hypertext Markup Language File
jar Java Architecture File
mov, mp4, mpeg, wmv Video Files
pdf Portable Document Format File
ppt, pptx Microsoft PowerPoint Format (before/
after PowerPoint 2007)
tmp Temporary Data File
txt Unformatted Text File
xls, xlsx Microsoft Excel Workbooks (Before
and after Excel 2007)
zip Compressed File
This table shows a list of common file name extensions and the associated file formats.

File Extensions and File Associations

While file extensions simplify the identification of the right program to open
a file, they are not required to open a file with the correct associated program.
For example, you can rename a Word document and remove the “.docx” file
extension. Double clicking the file will no longer automatically start Word and
open the file in it. However, if you open Word and select the file, it will open just
fine. File extensions are just a convenient shortcut to help the operating system
select the right application.

Locating Files
File managers also help you locate, move, delete, or open files easily. Both Microsoft’s File Explorer
and Apple’s Finder show file names, folder structures, disk drives, and frequently accessed files and
folders. Imagine if you spent hours working on a file but have no idea where you put it. Worse, say
you don’t even remember the name of the file. Before you give up and begin to redo your work, you
should try these two main techniques to locate files on a computer: navigation and search.

Chapter 6—File Management 87

Navigation
Navigating to the correct folder to find a file will not be difficult if you have a systematic way of
naming folders and subfolders. As discussed earlier, the folder structure is akin to having a process
to store things in your house to easily locate what you want. Ideally, to find spoons and forks quickly,
you should have a space for “spoons and forks” and remember to store all your spoons and forks in
the space.
In short, navigation relies on labeling folders (storage areas) correctly and placing files in the correct
folders. A few minutes invested in developing a naming convention you want for your files and folders
can save hours of lost and wasted time and energy.

File Paths
In the computer world, finding a file relies heavily on the address of the file. The address, aka (also
known as) path, is the location where a file is stored, relative to the top level of storage on the computer.
As you navigate from one folder to another in File Explorer, you can see the current address in the

bar, you can see the path taken to get to the downloads folder is This PC → Local Disk (C:) → Users
address bar at the top of the file manager (highlighted as a blue rectangle in Figure 32). In the address

→ Public → Public Downloads.

FIGURE 32 — File paths displayed graphically (top) and as text (bottom).

88 Chapter 6—File Management

The path of the above folder is written as C:\Users\Administrators\Downloads. The backslash is a
separator that represents a “contains” relationship. In this example, the C Drive (C:) contains a folder
called Users, which in turn contains Administrator, which contains Downloads.

Search
If you cannot find a file by navigation, file managers also support search operations. The powerful
search feature will look through all the accessible storage media, both internal and external, to find
the file.
1) Enter the name of the file in the search box (see Figure 33).
2) Press “Enter” on your keyboard to begin searching.

FIGURE 33 — Begin searching in File Explorer by entering the file name in the search box.

You can also specify a search criterion to narrow down the search and find the file more quickly. Just
as you can find a favorite lost pen more easily if you know where you last used it, you can tell the
computer where the file might be located to make it easier to find. For example, if you know that your
file is in the Documents folder, you should select the Documents folder, but not any of the subfolders,
to have the best chance of finding the file. File Explorer has a “search ribbon” (highlighted in Figure 34)
with many options to narrow your search criteria.

FIGURE 34 — The search ribbon in File Explorer can be used to narrow your search criteria.

Chapter 6—File Management 89

Narrow searches are faster because they filter out more options. It is therefore better to specify as
much of the file name and extension as possible, if you happen to remember it.
If you have an estimate of when you last worked on the file, you can search for files by their modification
dates. To do this, click on “Date Modified” to specify a date range of when you think you last modified
the file (see Figure 35).

FIGURE 35 — The “Date Modified” option in File Explorer can help further narrow a search.

If you know the type of file you are looking for, you can limit your search to files of that type. To do so,
click on “Kind” and specify the type of file you are looking for (see Figure 36).

90 Chapter 6—File Management

 FIGURE 36 — The “Kind” dropdown is another way to narrow a search in File Explorer.

You can also specify the “Size” of the file to further narrow the search criteria (see Figure 37).

FIGURE 37 — Using the “Size” dropdown can assist in targeting the search criteria.

Chapter 6—File Management 91

Check your results to find your file (see Figure 38). If you do not see your file, you should change the
search criteria. You may be searching for the file in the wrong folder, or you may not have the correct
file name. If you are not sure about the file name, specify only the part you remember. Also, you may
want to specify a generic folder name (a level or two above in the folder hierarchy) to avoid missing
the file. This will slow the search considerably but increase the likelihood of finding the file.

FIGURE 38 — Search results in File Explorer.

System Generated Folders

For end-user convenience, operating systems create default locations to store files. All computers
using the same operating system will use these default locations. It is therefore very useful to be
aware of some of the common locations where the operating system (e.g., Microsoft Windows) stores
file of each type.

Location Type of Content

Users This top-level folder contains folders for all users with
accounts on the computer. Each of these user-specific
folders is called the home folder for the user and is named
for the user’s ID. Files associated with a user are placed
within the user’s home folder by default.

92 Chapter 6—File Management

 Location Type of Content
Desktop The default screen you see when you boot your computer.
All the files you see on the default screen can be found in
the folder called “Desktop.” The desktop view adopts the
metaphor of a physical desktop to visually display files of
interest. This is a sub-folder within the user’s home folder.
Downloads Any time you download files from the Internet (e.g.,
using a browser, or from an email), they get stored in
the Downloads folder. This is also a sub-folder within the
user’s home folder.
Pictures Default location for images you create or photos you
upload to your computer. This is also a sub-folder within
the user’s home folder.
This PC This is the top level of storage in File Explorer. Every folder/
disk drive/storage media on your computer is contained
in This PC.
C:, D:, E: Every storage media recognized by your computer is
given a letter name. For example, the internal disk drive
that has your OS is C drive (represented by C:). When you
plug an external USB drive, it might show up as a D drive
(represented by D:)
Dropbox, Box, Cloud storage systems like Dropbox create their own
Google Drive folder within the user’s home folder. You can access your
cloud files in this folder. If you make any changes to files in
this folder, these changes will get synchronized on cloud
storage. More on cloud-based file management later in
this chapter.
Desktop/ All the files you delete are temporarily stored in the Recycle
Recycle Bin Bin on your Desktop. If you accidentally delete any file on
your computer, you can always go to your Desktop, open
the Recycle Bin folder, and restore the previously deleted
file. To clean your computer to have more space, you can
permanently delete files in the Recycle Bin.
Program Files All the programs you install on your computer (Microsoft
Office, Word, Excel, Chrome browser, etc.) are stored in
the Program Files folder.
Program Data If a program needs to store data on your computer, the
data will be in C:/Program Data. For example, if you are
using a database software, typically the software will be in
C:/Program Files/<Database Vendor>/<Software Name>,
and the actual data will be in C:/Program Data/<Database
Vendor>/<Data>.

Chapter 6—File Management 93

File Operations

Renaming Files and Folders

All file managers (e.g., File Explorer, Finder) make it easy to rename files and folders. (See Figure 39.)
To rename a file using File Explorer, follow these steps:
1) Select the file you want to rename by clicking on it (single click).
2) Click the “Rename” button in the ribbon at the top. A text box will open for the new name.
3) Alternately, after selecting any file in File Explorer, right clicking on the file name with your
mouse will open a context-menu that gives you options to “Cut,”“Copy,”“Delete,” and “Rename.”

FIGURE 39 — Two ways of renaming a file or folder. Top—Right-click menu item to rename files and folders. Bottom—
An editable textbox is highlighted where you can rename files and folders.

94 Chapter 6—File Management

Use the same file-renaming technique to rename
folders. Select a folder by clicking on it in File Explorer,
then right click your mouse to open the context menu
that offers options to manipulate the folder.
Most application programs also give you menu
options to rename files. You can save a copy of a file
under a different name if you select “Save As” or “Save
a Copy” under the “File” menu option (see Figure 40).

Copying Files
By copying a file, you create a duplicate. Copying is
useful in many situations. For example, you may want
to make a copy and start working on it to preserve the
original file. You may also like to copy files to a backup FIGURE 40 — Select “Save As” to save with a new
name.
storage device. There are several ways to copy files.
Some of the most common ways are presented here.
If you are working on a file in an application program, using the “Save As” option under the “File”
menu allows you to save the file using a new name in the current location or anywhere else in the
computer’s file system (Figure 41).

FIGURE 41 — Use the “Save As” option to save a file in the same or in a new location using File Explorer.

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You can also use the “Copy” and “Paste” features of your file manager to copy a file and paste it in any
location. In File Explorer, navigate to the file location, identify the file you want to copy, select it, then
right click for the context menu, and choose “Copy” (Figure 42).

FIGURE 42 — The “Copy” option in File Explorer.

Once you copy a file, it is in the computer’s memory. You can then tell the computer what to do with
it. To paste it in any location, navigate to the correct folder in File Explorer, click anywhere in the white
space of the folder, right click to open the context menu, and choose “Paste” (Figure 43).

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 FIGURE 43 — If a file is in memory, right clicking in the white space in a folder will bring the context menu option to
paste.

Copying files to memory is not limited to one file. You can also copy a folder containing many files and
paste it in any location. You can also copy and paste multiple files. To select files to copy, just press
the “Ctrl” button on your keyboard as you click on the files you want to copy. Then right-click on any
selected file to bring up the context menu and select “Copy.” The OS will now have the collection of
all selected files in its memory. Right-clicking on an empty space in a folder will bring up the context
menu for this folder and selecting “Paste” from the context menu in a folder will paste these selected
files into the target folder.
Keep in mind, copying is an overwrite operation. Every time you copy something to memory, it erases
the previously copied content in memory. Only the last “Copy” (a file, a folder, or a collection of files) is
in memory during the copy and paste process. After copying File A, if you decide to click on File B and
choose “Copy,” then the computer has File B in its memory. If you paste, you will paste File B.

Moving Files
Moving a file transfers the original file to a new location. Whereas the copy and paste operation creates
multiple copies of a file, moving files transfers the original file to a new location. Multiple copies
are not created. Moving files is useful in many situations, including reorganizing files, or transferring
from a computer’s hard disk to a cloud storage folder. File managers support multiple mechanisms to
move files.

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Rhyming with “copy and paste” is the “cut and paste” operation to move file. The process to cut and
paste is the same as the copy and paste operation. Locate the file you want to move, right click on your
file to bring up the context menu and choose the “Cut” option. Once you choose the “Cut” option, the
file is in the memory of the computer, and has been marked for deletion from the original location.
Navigate to the new folder and click anywhere in the white space of the folder. Then right click on
your mouse to bring the context menu and choose the “Paste” option to transfer the file to the new
folder. The file will also be deleted from the old location.
The cut and paste technique works with folders as well as files. Just like with the copy and paste
operation, you can move a group of files and/or folders by first selecting multiple files by pressing
“Control” (“Ctrl”)and clicking on each files you want to move. Once highlighted you would use the cut
and paste process to move all the files and/or folders to a new location.
You can also use a drag and drop operation to move files and folders. To drag and drop easily, open
two File Explorer windows and set them up side-by-side. Open a File Explorer window. Then open
a second File Explorer window by choosing the “Open new window” option under the “File” menu
(Figure 44). You can resize the two File Explorer windows, if needed, so they are both visible on your
computer. This can be done by clicking in the corner or on the edge of the window and dragging it so
that it becomes larger or smaller as needed. In one window, open the source folder that contains the
files you want to move, and in the other open the target folder of where you want to move the files to.

FIGURE 44 — The “Open new window” option opens a new Explorer window.

Once you select the files you want to move by clicking on them in the first File Explorer window, hold
the left mouse button and drag the files to the desired folder in the second File Explorer window. You
will see the files being removed from the source window and being added to the target window.

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 Using the Drag Operation to Copy and Paste
A variant of the cut and paste drag operation allows you to “copy and paste.” To
copy and paste files using the drag and drop option, hold the “Ctrl” key along
with the left mouse button. This use of the “Ctrl” key to switch between the copy
and cut operations is a common use of the “Ctrl” key.

Deleting Files
It is good practice to delete files regularly to save space, reduce clutter, and make it easier to find what
you are looking for. One common reason to delete files is to get rid of redundant copies of photos or
videos. Purging unnecessary media files not only saves a lot of space, but also makes it easier to find
interesting pictures. If you are worried about losing important information, you can create a suitably
named folder such as “Unwanted Files” and then organize all unnecessary files in easily identifiable
subfolders within it.
To delete a file, click on the file in the file manager, right click your mouse on the file to bring up the
context menu, and choose the “Delete” option. Another way to delete a file or a collection of files is to
first select them in the file manager, then click the “Home” tab on the File Explorer ribbon. Clicking on
the “Delete” option will delete all the selected files (see Figure 45).

FIGURE 45 — The “Delete” option is found under the “Home” menu.

Restoring Files
If you accidentally delete a file and want to get it back, the operating system offers a neat trick to save
your day. When you delete a file, it is flagged as deleted, no longer visible to you in the file manager,
and gets moved to Recycle Bin in Windows and Trash on Macs. The Recycle Bin, like Trash, is a giant
trash can that holds all your deleted files. In Windows systems, you can find the Recycle Bin on your
Desktop. You can also click the Windows Start icon and type Recycle Bin (see Figure 46).

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 FIGURE 46 — The Recycle Bin in Windows.

If you have many deleted files in the Recycle Bin, you can use the column headers to click and sort.
You can sort by “Name,” “Location,” “Date Deleted,” and “Size,” or use the search box to find files by
name. Right click on any file to get the context menu to view file properties, restore, or permanently
delete the file.

FIGURE 47 — The Recycle Ben folder’s context menu opens options. The Recycle Bin Tools appear on the ribbon.

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On the ribbon under the “Recycle Bin Tools” menu, you have the option to completely empty the bin
or restore all or selected items (see Figure 47).
You should consider emptying your recycling bin periodically. Right-clicking on Recycle Bin on
Windows or Trash on Mac and selecting “Empty” permanently gets rid of all the deleted files from the
computer.

File Compression and Decompression

File compression is the process of rewriting a file to a smaller size than the original. File compression
is very useful in many situations. Imagine if it takes an hour to download a music file over the Internet;
you desperately need to send an email that has a huge attachment; or it takes forever to copy a
large file to a USB stick—file compression is the common solution to all these problems. When a
compressed file is to be read, decompression utilities can restore the contents of the file.
File managers include utilities to compress and decompress files. Compression works not only for
files, but also for folders. When a folder is decompressed after transfer, the entire folder structure
along with the contents are regenerated just the way the files were at the time of compression.
To compress a file or folder in File Explorer, select the file or folder, then right click to bring up the
context menu. Choose “Send to” and then “Compressed (zipped) folder” (Figure 48). This will apply
the file compression algorithm and create a significantly smaller sized file. A new compressed file
called My_Important_files.zip is created without impacting the original folder in any way. To restore
the original contents from the compressed file, just select the zipped file and right click to bring the
context menu. Choose “Extract All” to decompress the folder and rebuild the file structure.

FIGURE 48 — Files can be compressed using File Explorer.

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The extent of compression is called compression ratio. The compression ratio depends upon the
algorithm used, the data type,76 and the type of file. Typically, media files (e.g., video, audio, images)
can be compressed to a greater extent than text files such as Word and Excel files containing characters
and numbers.

Lossy vs Lossless Compression

There are two general approaches to data compression—lossy and lossless.
Lossy compression algorithms can remove some data from the original file
to reduce its size. The original data cannot be recreated by decompressing a
file compressed using a lossy algorithm. Lossless compression preserves all
the original data in the file and all the original data can be recovered upon
decompression. The zip compression algorithm we have discussed in this
chapter is a lossless compression algorithm. Compression algorithms used in
business typically need to be lossless.
Lossy compression algorithms can typically achieve very high levels of
compression. Lossy compression is typically used in media files by removing
features in audio, video, and images that are less noticeable to our senses.
Almost all the media you consume, including Netflix, Spotify, Apple Music etc.
use lossy compression though this is not noticeable because our eyes and ears
do not notice any difference. Lossy compression is also used to transmit data to
your Bluetooth earbuds. So, if you subscribe to a lossless audio service, you will
need to get special headphones that do not compress audio in its journey from
the device to the earpiece.

File Backup
File backup, or data backup, is the process of creating and storing a copy of data in such a way that
the copy may be used to restore the original in case of data loss. At the end of the day, your computer
is an appliance, just like your dishwasher or a refrigerator. You must always consider the possibility of
losing all the critical files on your computer at any time. While the computer may run for years at end,
it may refuse to start on any given day, without any notice.
Data on computers can become inaccessible for various reasons. A computer has moving parts
including: fans; power supplies; disk drives; and accessories like cameras, microphones, speakers, and
printers. These devices can fail from mechanical shocks and the heat generated by the processor.
What is the solution to protecting critical data files on your computer? The common procedure is to
periodically copy critical files and folders into a USB stick or an external drive that can be reconnected
to a new computer when the old one dies. However, this manual process of copying into external
storage may not work well if you have hundreds of files. It also requires considerable discipline to do

76 A good comparison of several compression algorithms is at “Comparison of Brotli, Deflate, Zopfli,

LZMA, LZHAM and Bzip2 Compression Algorithms,” https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/
brotli/vignettes/brotli-2015-09-22.pdf (accessed June 2023).

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manual backup on a regular basis. Cloud storage, covered in the next section is potentially a great
alternate solution to protecting critical data.

Industrial Backups
Data backups in the industrial environment can get very complicated very
fast. When your computers are serving large numbers of customers, not only
do you have to worry about these computer devices failing, but you also must
worry about power supplies to these devices, as well as the connectivity of
these devices to the Internet. For this reason, TV broadcasters have developed
a complicated solution. They maintain battery backups, which are backed up
by redundant generators that are supplied by diesel fuel sources from multiple
vendors. The broadcasters also maintain multiple connections to the Internet,
deliberately choosing providers with non-overlapping connections to the
Internet. By taking these precautions, a natural disaster such as a hurricane
does not bring the station down.

Cloud-Based File Management

Cloud-based file management is the process of storing data with a service provider off-site while
still being able to work with the data as if it were stored on the local computer. Cloud-based file
management has many uses, including file safety, security, and convenience. Having files on your
computer is problematic in many ways. There is no easy way to share a file on your computer with
colleagues. Imagine sharing photo albums stored in your computer with family members spread
across the globe. What if you and your friends wanted to work on the same file? Would you mail the
document and wait for others to make their changes one by one? What if you needed to revert the
file to an older version that was better in some respects? What if you wanted to see the incremental
changes you have made to a file over the past year?
The solution to all these problems is cloud-based
file management. Recent solutions like Dropbox,
Box, Google Drive and OneDrive offer cloud-
based file management services that are very
convenient technically and economically. These
services take care of backing up data, so users do
not have to worry about device failures.
Dropbox is a popular cloud-based file management
system. After you create an account at dropbox.
com and install the software on your computer
Dropbox will show up as a folder on your desktop
(see Figure 49).
You can treat Dropbox like any other folder on
your computer. Under the Dropbox folder, you
can create folders, subfolders, and files. As you FIGURE 49 — Once an account is created the
create or modify a file, a copy of the file is sent to Dropbox folder will appear in File Explorer.

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the Dropbox servers in the cloud. There your file is backed-up magically without any effort on your
behalf.77
If you have multiple computers, you can install Dropbox on all the machines and connect them to
the same Dropbox account. Any change you make to one computer’s Dropbox folder appears on all
other computers. Cloud-based file management has taken away the headache associated with saving
and sharing files manually. You simply put all your critical files in a Dropbox folder, and they are there
for all your friends on the Dropbox servers. If a computer dies and you buy a new computer, you only
need to install Dropbox on the new computer and log in to the application with your Dropbox user-id
and password. Within minutes, all your files will show up on the new computer in the Dropbox folder.
If you go on a vacation and forget to bring your computer, you can go to any computer at an Internet
café, open a browser, go to www.dropbox.com, and login to access all your files (see Figure 50). Your
online Dropbox account will show who has access to files. You can even look at the entire version
history of any file, see what changes were made when, and revert to any older version.

FIGURE 50 — You can also view your Dropbox folder online, which can be very convenient when away from your
desk.

To share any file with others, right click on the file to bring up the context menu and select “Share.”
(See Figure 51.)

77 You may like to see the original video created by Drew Houston, the founder of DropBox, describing
the service, “Dropbox Original MVP Video,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxFLfY7_Gqw
(accessed June 2023).

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 FIGURE 51 — It is easy to share a file or folder in Dropbox with others.

While Dropbox is designed for regular consumers, Box is designed more for organizations. Box focuses
on integrating tightly with the security systems of universities and companies. Employees can use
their company credentials to use Box and send files to other employees for review and approval.
OneDrive is Microsoft’s alternative to Dropbox. Typically geared for enterprises and Office 365 users, it
also offers versioning and collaboration capabilities and a way to access files across many computers.
Just like Dropbox, OneDrive appears as a folder on your computer. All the files stored in the OneDrive
folder are backed up into cloud servers and can be accessible by others, based on sharing rules.
Google Drive is the online cloud file storage system from Google and i-Drive is the equivalent from
Apple. Like Dropbox, Box, and OneDrive, these systems also offer cloud back up, versioning, and
sharing features.
A tradeoff for the ease of using a cloud-based file management are the expenses associated with
these services. Once you are out of the free-trial period or use more storage than offered for free, you
will have to sign up for the service and pay a subscription fee. This model of using software services
for a fee is referred to as SaaS (Software as a Service). SaaS is becoming increasingly popular among
companies as it saves companies the headache of buying and maintaining software and hardware.
For a suitable rental fee, SaaS services can be valuable for a wide range of organizations.78

Task or Activity Manager

You are likely to run into many situations where you’d want to know how your computer is performing—
which applications are consuming too much power, memory, CPU, processing, or network bandwidth.
Operating systems have utilities that help users manage, monitor, and troubleshoot the applications
running on computers. On Windows, the utility is called Task Manager and on Mac, the utility is called
Activity Monitor.

78 For an alternate view of the economics of SaaS and cloud-based file management, particularly
when companies grow big, you may like to read this article about DropBox and their use of
Amazon Web Service. Sarah Wang and Martin Casado, “the Cost of Cloud, a Trillion Dollar
Paradox,” https://a16z.com/2021/05/27/cost-of-cloud-paradox-market-cap-cloud-lifecycle-
scale-growth-repatriation-optimization/ (accessed June 2023).

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To open the Task Manager on Windows, you can press the Windows key () and type “Task Manager.”
Alternately, use the keyboard shortcut, “Ctrl+Shift+Esc.”

FIGURE 52 — Windows Task Manager offers different view of the applications running on the computer.

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As you can see in Figure 52, the Task Manager provides great visibility into all applications running
and the resources consumed on the computer. Like in File Explorer, you can right click any process
to pull up the context menu. A useful operation in the context menu of the Task Manager is the
option to “End Process.” If you have an application that is not responding to user input, this is the most
straightforward mechanism to end that application, and if needed, restart it. Figure 53 shows Mac’s
Activity Monitor, which performs similar functions.79

FIGURE 53 — Activity Monitor on Mac, offers similar functions as Windows Task Manager.

79 “Activity Monitor User Guide,” https://support.apple.com/guide/activity-monitor/welcome/mac

(accessed June 2023).

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 Chapter Terms and Definitions

Activity Monitor: A utility provided by the File Decompression: The process of restoring
Macintosh operating system that is designed a compressed file, such as a ZIP, to its original
to report how your Macintosh computer is content form
distributing and processing disks, memory, or
network communication File Extension: After the name of a file, followed
by a period is a sequence of letters that indicate
Cloud-Based File Management: The process of the format of the file; operating systems use the
storing data with a cloud service provider while file extension to locate a default program which
working with the data as if it were stored on the will be used to open and execute the file
local computer
File Management: Creating an organized
Copy and Paste: To transfer text or some other structure to store information on your computer
type of content, such as an image to another for easy retrieval and use
location in the same or different document; for
example, in Microsoft Windows this can be done File Manager: The User Interface (UI) in which
with “Control + C” to copy and “Control + V” to you can interact with the files and store them
paste content
File Operations: A computer operating system
Cut and Paste: Similar to copy and paste, but allows for the manipulation of files; such as
instead of leaving the original text or content create, edit, and delete
intact, the original content is removed and
transfered to a new location
File Path: The absolute directory on a computer
where a file is located; for example, the absolute
Drag and Drop: Using a mouse button to click file path for a file named hello_world.docx
and hold onto a software object such as an image located in the Documents folder of a Microsoft
or file, drag it across the screen, and then release Windows computer could be: C:\Users\Clinton\
the button to relocate the object Documents\hello_world.docx

File Backup: The process of creating and storing Mac Finder: The file manager UI used by the
a copy of data in such a way that the copy may Macintosh operating system
be used to restore the original in case of data loss
Recycle Bin: Where Microsoft Windows stores
File Compression: A process that reduces the the files deleted by a user before they are
space a file takes up in storage and increases permanently removed; it offers an opportunity
the speed in which it can be transferred from for a user to recover files before they are
one computer to another; for example, a ZIP file permanently deleted
contains one or more files from a folder that has
been compressed

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Task Manager: A utility provided by the Microsoft User Interface (UI): Any medium that allows
Windows operating system that is designed to users to interact with computers
report how your PC is distributing memory, disk
space, and processing applications Windows File Explorer: The file manager UI
used by the Microsoft Windows operating system
Trash: Where Macintosh stores the files deleted
by a user before they are permanently removed;
it offers an opportunity for a user to recover files
before they are permanently deleted

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 Chapter Case

Ian’s Research Paper File

It was a Saturday morning and Ian’s sister needed to borrow his laptop for one day.
Ian’s laptop had an application program installed that his sister needed in order to
complete her 10th grade science project. This meant Ian had to start writing his
research paper using Microsoft Word on his mom’s laptop. He knew he wouldn’t
be able to finalize it on Saturday and wanted to finish it using his personal laptop
on Sunday, after his sister was done with her project. Once he finished writing his
research paper, he had to submit the final version to receive his grade. It had to be
on the cloud-based storage system before his writing class started on Monday at
9:00 a.m.
Based on the above scenario, what recommendations do you have for Ian given the
following questions:

Question 1: What possible file extensions would be used to write Ian’s research
paper?
Question 2: What should Ian do to save the work he partially completed on his
research paper file after using his mom’s laptop on Saturday?
Question 3: What should Ian do to save his research paper after completing it
using his personal laptop on Sunday?
Question 4: What cloud-based storage should Ian use to submit the final version
of his research paper for his Monday class and how will his teacher
access the file?

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