See Smart Folders<\/a> in the Help file for the full account; this article is an orientation.<\/p>\n Wherever the smart folder icon appears, clicking it opens a pane on the left showing the folders. That is three places:<\/p>\n Folders with a yellow icon expand into subfolders; “tip” folders hold results only. The number after each name is the number of records in it at that level, not the number of values: “Occupations (23)” is 23 people, who may have more than 23 occupations between them.<\/p>\n Smart Folders come in folder sets<\/em>, one set showing at a time, chosen from the dropdown at the top of the pane. \u0192h<\/span><\/span> ships with standard folder sets for every record type and for facts, citations and witnesses; the list you see depends on which record type you are looking at. Standard sets cannot be edited, but any set can be cloned as a custom set and the copy edited. Manage Folder Sets<\/em>, on the Query button’s dropdown and on the cog menu of the smart folder pane, is where sets are created, cloned, renamed, deleted, imported and exported; folder set files have the extension One useful application is the Sources<\/em> and Source Citations<\/em> folder sets, which contain Auto<\/em> folders, which read the source templates in the current project and generate folders grouped by template category, with the template’s fields as columns, and keep themselves in step as templates change. The practical effect is that it no longer much matters whether you record sources as a lumper (one source per census) or a splitter (one per household): either way you can browse the citations as if they were organised the other way. See Sources and Citations in Version 8 (for New Users)<\/a>.<\/p>\n All editing is done in the Query Window with the Design Mode<\/em> button on the smart folder toolbar pressed. Start by cloning a standard set that is close to what you want. In design mode you see the folders as designed rather than as displayed: a single designed folder can expand into a whole branching tree when viewed.<\/p>\n There are four folder types, set in the Edit Smart Folder<\/em> dialog:<\/p>\n A Column Set Variant<\/em> sits beneath a Query or Plugin folder and supplies a different set of columns for particular subfolders: the standard Facts set uses one so that the Marriage folder shows spouses and bridesmaids while Birth does not. Its Filters tab has a single “Group By Column Test” naming the subfolder value it applies to.<\/p>\n Two pieces of Calico Pie’s own advice worth repeating: don’t use prompts in a query or plugin inside a smart folder, since \u0192h<\/span><\/span> runs them whenever it needs to and the prompt will appear at unexpected moments; and make the first displayed column of a record-type folder the record itself ( A query answers a question once and gives you a table. A smart folder keeps answering as you click, and shows counts as you go. If you find yourself running the same query with different prompt values, or building a query only to see what values a field takes, a folder set with a Group By column is usually the better tool. For anything with a prompt, a fixed sort order, a printed layout or a CSV export, use a query; see An Overview of Queries in Version 8<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","fh_version":[826],"skill_level":[17,16],"topic":[68,101,63],"class_list":["post-13229","kb_article","type-kb_article","status-publish","hentry","fh_version-v8","skill_level-intermediate","skill_level-newcomer","topic-faqs","topic-records-window","topic-searching-and-querying"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fhug.org.uk\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/kb_article\/13229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fhug.org.uk\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/kb_article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fhug.org.uk\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/kb_article"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fhug.org.uk\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"fh_version","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fhug.org.uk\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/fh_version?post=13229"},{"taxonomy":"skill_level","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fhug.org.uk\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/skill_level?post=13229"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fhug.org.uk\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=13229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Where You See Them<\/h2>\n
\n
![\"Smart](\"\/kb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/fh8-smart-folders-records-window-1024x154.png\")
<\/a>Folder Sets<\/h2>\n
![\"Manage](\"\/kb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/fh8-manage-folder-sets-768x810.png\")
<\/a>.fhsf<\/code>, and can be shared like queries. Folder sets contributed by FHUG members are in the Smart Folders section of our Downloads<\/a>; double-click a downloaded file to install it, or use Import<\/em> in Manage Folder Sets. Missing Facts<\/a> is a good one to start with, since it is obvious what it is finding.<\/p>\nSources: the Lumper and Splitter Question<\/h2>\n
![\"Sources](\"\/kb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/fh8-smart-folders-sources-1024x144.png\")
<\/a>Designing Your Own<\/h2>\n
![\"Query](\"\/kb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/fh8-smart-folders-design-mode-1024x507.png\")
<\/a>\n
%INDI%<\/code>, %SOUR%<\/code> and so on), so the folder looks the same in the Records Window as in the Query Window.<\/p>\nQueries and Smart Folders<\/h2>\n