Hey Beautiful People,
I hear people talking about using folders in their projects. Could someone please tell me how folders are used and their benefits?
Thank you!

Instead of all your audio tracks being saved in one central folder, they are saved in an audio folder off the project folder.

Track folders? In a very large project, you could put all of the strings in a folder and collapse it so they're not taking up so much screen space, for instance.

Also useful if you want to edit everything together. Could be a copy past operation. Could be if you've selected multi track grouping while recording in comp mode, then you can comp a best take of say a drum part easily.

There are 2 type of folders, as alluded to above.
 
The first is at system level for organising files/projects using normal Windows conventions
 
The second is a project level device used for grouping similar tracks together in Track View making it easy to hide/show a complete sub group of audio/midi tracks. You can also mute/solo an entire folder which is very useful.

To get an idea of track folders usage, here are a couple of examples for you;
 
1) You have an instance of Kontakt with several orchestral instruments in it. You have the instruments routed out to 16 separate audio tracks and you have a load of midi tracks for all your arrangements. You also have a pile of other tracks for other stuff and you want to better organise everything. You can create a track folder in track view and name it Orchestra. Now you can drag all your Kontakt orchestral midi and audio tracks into it. The folder can be closed now, hiding all the orchestral tracks making it easier to manage the rest of your project. The Kontakt tracks all still function as they should.
 
2) You are recording a live band. You have 8 tracks for the drum kit and loads of other tracks for the other instruments, including several guitar parts and a load of layered backing vocals. To better manage things in track view, you can put all your drum tracks in a folder called Drums, all the guitars in a folder called Guitars and all the backing vocal tracks in a folder called Backing Vocals. You can now close the folders up and have a less cluttered track view. You can reopen a folder at any time to work on a track within it.
 
That's the basics of track folders.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECT31tQstgo Here's a video on track folders. SWA has free Sonar X2 video series on youtube that still has a lot of great info that still applies to Platinum.
 
Rocky

I use the track folders a lot for organizing and I also have some track templates with folders set up for quick idea recording.
 
I have a template series with gtr DI/wet, Vox dry/fx and labeled Take 1,2,3 etc.
 
Drag take 1 into a new project and go.  Close the take 1 folder and drag take 2 in and record more.  Go back a few days later - easy to click takes on and off via the folder to listen and they are already labeled so I remember what take they were!
 
 

A typical project for me would be separate folders for Drums, Guitars, Vocals, Keys, Midi
I will sometimes split guitars into Acoustic & Electric.
 
I long for the day when we can nest folders and for a similar functionality to exist in Console View.

I find track folders useful for three reasons. 
 
Suppose you put all your background vocals in a Harmonies folder, all your drum tracks in a Drums folder, all the guitar tracks in a Guitars folder, etc.
 
1-You can mute or solo (or archive) everything in a folder at once.  For example, if you just want to listen to the drums for a moment, you don't have to solo each drum track: just solo the folder.
2-As mentioned above, if you are just working on certain instruments (like the guitars), you can collapse the other folders so they are not taking up room on the screen.  With some consoles (like the VS-700) you also won't see the faders for the collapsed tracks which makes it easier to focus on the group you are working on.
 3-You can rearrange your tracks just by moving a folder.  For example, you can put all the drums at the top, then the bass, then all the guitars (or however you like it) just by dragging the folders.  I have a sepcific order, but it may not mean anything to you. People who worked on large analog consoles with tape machines usually have some order of tracks burned into their brains.
 
 
I usually put whatever is in a folder in a separate bus, but that's a separate discussion.