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Blog · 29 October 2025

A swipe file template you can steal (folders, tags and the lot)

A ready-made swipe file structure for marketers, designers, PMs and devs: the folders, the tags, the note to write on every save, and the weekly routine.

TLDR

  • Copy the folder list for your job, the tag list, and the three-line note. That’s the template.
  • Folders are for how work arrives (a brief for an ad, a landing page, an email). Tags are for what makes a save interesting (the hook, the pattern, the trick).
  • Everything lands in Unsorted first. Sort once a week, ten minutes.
  • Resist adding more folders. Eight is plenty. Twenty means you’ve built a filing system you’ll stop using by March.

The one rule

Folders answer “what is this”. Tags answer “why did I save it”. If you remember nothing else, remember that, and you’ll never have a folder called Landing pages - dark - SaaS - good ones.

Folders, by job

Pick the list that’s closest to you. Mix them if you do more than one job (hi, founders).

Marketers

Unsorted
Paid social
Landing pages
Pricing pages
Lifecycle email
Launches
Social posts
Competitors

Designers

Unsorted
Heroes
Navigation
Pricing tables
Empty states and 404s
Type
Colour
Motion

Product managers

Unsorted
Onboarding
Checkout
Upgrade prompts
Settings
Cancellation
Competitors
Research

Developers

Unsorted
Snippets
Docs worth copying
Repos
Talks
Config
Reading
The marketer version of the template, set up in Savepad. Nested folders are there if you need them. You probably don't yet.

Tags, by what makes it good

Start with these and add your own when you notice a pattern. Lowercase, hyphens, short.

What it’s doing: #urgency, #social-proof, #objection, #curiosity, #offer, #before-after, #specific-number

How it looks: #ugc, #plain-text, #illustration, #product-shot, #dark, #type-led

How it’s built: #one-cta, #long-form, #carousel, #video, #sequence

Status: #steal-this, #used

That last one matters. When you actually use a reference, tag it #used. After a year you’ll know which saves earned their place and which were just pretty.

The note on every save

Three lines, max. Nobody writes more, so don’t pretend you will.

Why: the price is the hook, first four words
Steal: lead with the number, not the feature
Context: Meta ad, running since March

“Why” is what made you stop. “Steal” is the part you’d actually reuse. “Context” is anything you won’t remember later: where, when, how long it ran.

The weekly routine

  1. Save everything to Unsorted. From your phone, from your laptop, from the ad library. Don’t sort while you save.
  2. Friday, ten minutes. Open Unsorted. For each save: folder, a tag or two, a three-line note if it deserves one. Or delete it. Deleting is allowed.
  3. Monthly, five minutes. Look at your tags. Merge #pricingpage into #pricing. Kill any tag with one save in it.

Setting it up in Savepad

In Savepad it takes about five minutes:

  1. Make a space called Work (or Swipe file).
  2. Add the folders from your list. A save can sit in more than one folder, so an ad that’s also a competitor goes in both.
  3. Add your tags as you go. They’re per space and work across every folder.
  4. Save things by pasting links, dropping files, or forwarding to your Savepad email address. Add +paid-social to the address and it goes straight into that folder.
  5. Friday: triage mode shows Unsorted one save at a time, with a key per folder.

The Free plan takes 150 saves, which is plenty to find out if this setup works for you. Pricing has the plans, and features has everything else it does.

If you’d rather use Notion or a spreadsheet, the same structure works. Savepad vs Notion goes through where Notion works for this and where it falls apart. And if you want to see a real one, swipe file examples has a few, including mine.

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