Everything important goes to ~/data/ and inside various folders like project/, so all I need to do for backup script is to sync that folder.
I don't put anything intentionally under Documents/ as various apps try to put stuff in there to taint the folder layout.
Temporary files downloaded just stay at Downloads/ folder unless I need to keep it for a long while and I move it under data/.
Random text notes go to Notes app tagged instead of in random text files scattered which can also embed images.
Also Desktop/ is entirely empty this way. Wallpaper is as clear as it gets.
Also stuff I no longer need access to frequently like finished project goes to local encrypted folder (macOS specific) which I can open at will with a password but otherwise stays encrypted as a single file for archival purpose.
I also put all dotfiles in ~/data/ansible/home/ which get symlinked individually to ~/, so that whenever I launch a new server, most recent version of dotfiles get deployed to servers as well. (dotfiles are written in portable way across macOS, Linux and FreeBSD)
This is basically why I do in Windows too - I don't use the Documents, Photos folders and the like.
I have C:\Data, with subfolders inside for various 'topics', such as a 'Projects', 'Library', 'Cash Flow', 'Home' and 'Misc', as well as a folder for each family member.
For media and archival, I have 2x 4TB drives in a RAID 1 array. This contains many thousands of photos, as well as videos and films.
I use Seafile to Sync stuff between machines, with my Seafile server storing data in Azure blob storage (which is cheaper than Azure disks).
For media files like Music, I keep them on Windows desktop which gets synched to OneDrive 1TB account which came included with MS office subscription which I need anyway that is only $10/mo for both app and storage which sounds like a steal against other cloud storages.
Ah yes, I forgot to mention that I use OneDrive for an additional backup of photos - I have an MS Action Pack subscription, which gives me something like 5TB of storage (I forget exactly how much, but it's a lot!)
I don't put anything intentionally under Documents/ as various apps try to put stuff in there to taint the folder layout.
Temporary files downloaded just stay at Downloads/ folder unless I need to keep it for a long while and I move it under data/.
Random text notes go to Notes app tagged instead of in random text files scattered which can also embed images.
Also Desktop/ is entirely empty this way. Wallpaper is as clear as it gets.
Also stuff I no longer need access to frequently like finished project goes to local encrypted folder (macOS specific) which I can open at will with a password but otherwise stays encrypted as a single file for archival purpose.
I also put all dotfiles in ~/data/ansible/home/ which get symlinked individually to ~/, so that whenever I launch a new server, most recent version of dotfiles get deployed to servers as well. (dotfiles are written in portable way across macOS, Linux and FreeBSD)