Saved in my folder or saved on my folder. (2025)

Do you say,

Saved in my folder or saved on my folder.

Thanks for the help

luisiher said:

Do you say,

Saved in my folder or saved on my folder.

Thanks for the help

Click to expand...

Please tell us which you think it is.

Exactly.

However there are some cases where it's tough to decide on whether to use "in" or "on."

A store can be located "on" or "at" the corner (of two streets). Since we don't think if it as being in the middle of the intersection, we don't say "in the corner." However a chair or a person can be situated "in the corner" (of a room).

Best,

cew

I always thought it was “the documents are saved in my folder”. I was asking the question because some of my colleagues always say "saved on my folder" and they are English native speakers I am not.

Thanks you for the clarification.

luisiher said:

I always thought it was “the documents are saved in my folder”. I was asking the question because some of my colleagues always say "saved on my folder" and they are English native speakers I am not.

Thanks you for the clarification.

Click to expand...

You are right, however note that the terminology varies depending on where you are saving it:

• "They are saved on my computer."
• "They are saved on my hard drive."
• "They are saved on this disk."
• "They are saved in a folder."

We use "in" for books and folders.

Thus if I were reading a book and did not want to converse, I might say, "Not now, I'm in the middle of a good book."

I've never heard anyone who spoke English as a native say that something was saved "on" his/her folder. We say,
"That is saved on my desktop" (of a computer)
but of course it is
"saved in" the "My Documents" folder.

Best,

cew

Hi!

luisiher said:

I always thought it was “the documents are saved in my folder”. I was asking the question because some of my colleagues always say "saved on my folder" and they are English native speakers I am not.

Thanks you for the clarification.

Click to expand...

I just realized that we can say that something (an address, or another record usually)

"is on file"
(which means that we have it either

our file folders that we maintain or

our computers files or both--and thus that we don't need to obtain it again or elaborate more about it perhaps).

Thus, "on file" means "in the files we maintain," and it's used to describe the general location of data records (such as addresses). However, what it really says is that we have these data records and can access them/look up the data in them rather than specifying the location of the data records.

I hope this is not confusing.

Best,

cew

Yes, that's right. You understand it. "On file" indicates that a record is availabe. "In the/a [particular] file" specifies the location something is saved in.

The etymology of the English prepositions "in" and "on" is interesting--apparently, to some degree, they share a root:

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?l=o&p=4

(According to the resource above and also according to my offline dictionary, "on" used to be used where we use "in" and "on" was in Old English an unstressed variant of in.)

Best,

cew

These prepositions drive crazy. Now another similar question (I am not sure if I should open a new thread as this is related)

To improve on or to improve in

I think is to improve in

For example I need to improve in my piano skills

Thanks again

Hi. Yes this is related to the 'on' and 'in' question, but improve on /in is a different idiom than save on/in and has a different meaning. So I'd start a new thread (the moderators will probably suggest that you do so too).

Best,
cew