Document filing system

I obsessively keep old documents and receipts, and I also continue to look for new ways to store and organize them. Many years ago I began scanning the documents to keep electronic copies and shredding the originals to save space. It is a lot easier to organize and find documents this way (especially if you run OCR on the pdf's) but there needs to be a fool proof back up system. To maintain my sanity, it became clear that I would need off site backup but I am far to cheap to pay for it. I tried a few different schemes such as zipping the files and emailing them to myself but all methods had obvious shortcomings.

I wanted a system that:

- was secure - password access but not part of my usual accounts (if someone hacked my email, they could not access my files) and encrypted connection for transfer

- was easy to use - i wanted instant recall and automated filing

- could handle both edocs and scanned paper files

- could be accessed from anywhere

Last year I did some work at a pharmaceutical company that was setting up a system to transmit FDA docs between research sites in a secure manner. It inspired my current filing system. I could not afford to pay consultants for custom software solutions, but I was able to rig up a pretty good system using Gmail. Here's how it works:

step 1: take out a new gmail account,(the documents acct) use secure settings and never share address or pw. (this provides the centralized, secure online storage)

step 2 : decide on filing categories (as mail tags) and set up a simple code for each category with custom filters so that by attaching the code to the email gmail automatically file the email in the correct category.

step 3: using another email account, attach any current files to emails and send them to your documents acct with the filing code in the body of the message. This allows you to store hardcopy documents (google now allows you to automate this process using gdocs but that involves more set up and will separate edocs from scanned paper ones making it more difficult to search them). I make sure to go to the sent messages and erase those emails after from my primary acct.

step 4: set up automatic forwarding for any ebills that you receive so that they all go to the documents acct without actually giving out the documents email address (prevents spam and ads in your archive). set up filters in the doc acct to auto file these forwarded ebills to the same categories as the scanned docs.

At this point every document, bill, and receipt i have had in the last 5 or so years is saved on a gmail acct that only i know about. If i need a certain doc, typing it into the search bar brings it up. I can review all of a type of bill by logging on and clicking the tag. I have been using this system for over a year and it works very smoothly. beyond the original setup, it allows you to operate a sophisticated filing system with little time input.