As of 13 August 2026, AI can create a digital filing system for your household documents.

What to actually do

1. Do it yourself

   The route this page recommends

   A chat interface, no skill needed, and roughly 30 minutes until you can act on the result.

   How to actually do it

   1. Open the cloud storage or computer folder where you want the household system to live, and list the people, document categories and current folder names you already use.
   2. Gather the document types you actually have, such as tenancy papers, mortgage records, bills, insurance, vehicle documents, warranties, receipts, identity records and school or work documents, without copying private contents into the chatbot.
   3. Paste the prompt into a chatbot and replace each bracketed section with your storage service, household categories, current problems and preferences.
   4. Compare the proposed folder tree with your list of documents, remove categories you will never use, and add any missing category before creating folders.
   5. Create the approved folders, then rename a small group of existing files using the proposed date and description format and move them into their chosen folders.
   6. Search for common files such as an insurance policy, utility bill and warranty, then change the folder names or naming rules if you cannot find them quickly.
   7. Turn on the storage service's available backup or recovery options and set a calendar reminder for the review interval chosen in the prompt.
   8. Check retention decisions against the current issuer, insurer, landlord, lender or GOV.UK guidance before deleting any important document.

   Prompt

   Create a simple digital filing system for my household documents. Use these details:
   
   - Storage service: [for example, Google Drive, OneDrive, iCloud or local computer]
   - People whose documents are included: [list people or say household-wide]
   - Main document types: [for example, identity, housing, utilities, insurance, vehicles, work, education, health, finance and receipts]
   - Current problems: [describe what is difficult to find or manage]
   - Existing folders, if any: [paste the current folder names]
   - Retention preferences: [for example, keep permanently, keep for a set period, or decide case by case]
   - How often I want to review the system: [preference]
   
   Do not ask me to upload or paste the contents of private documents. Produce:
   1. A top-level folder structure with no more than the necessary categories.
   2. A complete example folder tree using plain folder names.
   3. A consistent file-naming convention with examples using dates in YYYY-MM-DD format.
   4. Rules for filing scans, emails, photos, warranties, renewals and documents relating to more than one person.
   5. A safe archive and deletion policy that tells me to check the document issuer or current UK guidance before deleting anything with legal, tax, insurance or identity significance.
   6. A short checklist for creating the folders and moving existing files.
   7. A search and backup routine.
   
   Keep the system practical for a household, avoid duplicate filing wherever possible, flag decisions I must make myself, and do not invent retention periods or legal requirements.

   Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.

2. Use a tool built for this

   Second choice

3. Hand it to a person

   The distant third

   A person who owns the outcome does this end to end, worth it when the failure is dear.