September 2000 - Eurythmics Sweet Dreams 128k MP3 downloaded from Napster
You’re not on the same machine, are you? That would be legendary.
That was many, many PCs ago. I kept rolling my HDDs or data over depending on what was upgraded, now my downloads are living on my NAS. One day for shits and giggles I wanted to see what the oldest file I had was, and sure enough I still had a Napster download.
It interests me that you did it in such a way that the download folder stayed the same. I have something more like this going. (Honestly it’s even worse because my top layer is like a physical drawer somewhere)
Since I only have my phone right now, here is October 2nd, 2019
On my phone right now so using my phone’s Downloads folder. 2 years old.
It’s this meme:
deleted by creator
One day, if I have actual money, I’ll buy from the artists. For now, I’m a not-technically-a-pirate-because-no-distribution.
I make 1 to 3 “monthly” backup folders, where everything I’ve downloaded that hasn’t been moved to a home goes into 2024 August Downloads
I think I have back to 2021.
Still use them fairly often, lol.
Ooh this is a good idea! Because when you extract a file you just downloaded the original creation/modification dates are preserved. So when you extract some tarball the directory my be from several years ago so you can’t rely on file modification times to see when you downloaded any given thing.
I think I’m going to start doing the date directory thing! I’ll start by writing a bash script that runs in a systemd timer that automatically creates a directory whenever the month changes 👍
I also like doing it this way because then I’m my own archive of old software installers. So if a new version comes out busted, run the old installer! Doesn’t always help if it’s internet connected, but it’s nice to have something.
And I think even my vast amount of history is maybe only 100GB on my backup HDD, if it’s larger it’s from occasional random large files lol.
I clean mine out regularly. Oldest right now is Cyberpunk 2077 mod that lets you pet your cat.
a picture of me with my siblings at the grand canyon for when they came to visit me when I was working there. Oct 15 2010
It’s a subdirectory that was created on April 2023. Looking inside, it contains a bunch of APKs related to YT Revanced. I kept it there because I can’t come up with a better location to move it to. That’s basically the same story for almost all of the files that ended up staying in the directory anyways. However, I try to keep try to keep things clean.
Whenever I visit the downloads directory, I make it a point to try to remember the context in which the files ended up in there. If I can no longer remember the context, I delete it. If there ends up way too many files of “the same class” then I’ll try to move them together onto a different location. But if it’s a file or two that I can’t move elsewhere, it’s no big deal.
Firefox installer.
Same
15 year old crack.
My downloads folder started in the early/mid-nineties. So TAG BBS execitable, probably.
September 26th, 2016
On my phone, it’s this which is datestamped 17 February 2012. I think I copied it there off the NAS, and the image is older than that.
June 2023, a picture of my daughter.
Im currently seeding a torrent ive had since December. But thats just this pc. Ive got way older stuff on my external.