What the benefit of folders when working with files?

Answer 1

Helps to organize related files together. Folders are called directories in some operating systems (e.g. MSDOS), but the analogy to a paper file folder was seen as helpful to understanding when graphical OSs were created.

Answer 2

Folders in a computer separate information or content to avoid confusion .

Folders is another name given to what technical people previously called (and still call) a directory. This was done to make people who work in offices more comfortable with using computers by attempting to do away with technical jargon. Originally, computers only had files that were used to store information. One issue was that files were referred to by a name and there could only be one instance of a name. Once computers became multiuser with multiple people saving information on a computer, it became a problem. Only one person could call a file "budget". A directory structure was developed so that Joe could have a directory with a file called "budget" and Alice could have a file with the same name.

Maybe there was an Alice in accounting and an Alice in research and the both needed a file called budget. Well, a directory structure could have directories within directories (with some limitations). so there was a accounting/alice/budget and a research/alice/budget. That was for unix. If you were using windows it would be research\alice\budget. If it was OpenVMS it would be [research.alice]budget.

Now replace director with folder

Answer 3

Think of folders as draws in a filing cabinet in an office. The files are the contents, documents, etc, that you want to save, and are filed into the draws of the filing cabinet.