Skip to main content

Folders

As your log grows, folders help you find contacts quickly. Folders give you a hierarchical file-system-style structure for organizing your contacts.

Folders​

Folders organize your contacts into a tree. Auto-created folders are grouped by the award program that filled them -- a collapsible card per program, such as Parks on the Air holding the two built-in categories, Activations and Hunting, or DX Chasing and Repeater contacts listing their months directly on their own cards (they only hunt, so there is no second kind of folder to separate them from) -- while folders you create appear in the custom-folders section below. Opening the Logbook from the sidebar always starts you here: every card is closed and no folder is open, so the page begins as a short list of programs rather than a wall of folders -- tap a card to open it. Only one top-level card -- an award program, Unrecognized program, Other folders, or Custom folders -- opens at a time; opening another closes the one currently showing. Reopen a card during the same Logbook visit and its inner Activations or Hunting section is still as you left it; leaving Logbook resets the tree. The exception is a view folder link on a hunt or activation card, which is a deliberate request to open the logbook on that one folder.

Every card carries its own tally to the right of its title: a folder icon with the number of folders inside it, and a person icon with the number of contacts those folders hold. The numbers belong to that card alone -- the Parks on the Air card counts only POTA folders, even though its Activations and Hunting headings are shared with the other programs. This is the quickest way to find a contact that went somewhere you did not expect. If you were sure a hunt would file into a monthly folder but the Custom folders card is the one showing contacts, that is where to look, without opening a single card. A card for a program you have not used yet shows no numbers at all, so a starting-point card still reads as an invitation rather than a count of nothing; once a card has folders, the folder number appears even while the contact count is still zero. A long program name is shortened to make room -- hover over the title to see it in full.

Automatic folders​

Hamtrax auto-creates folders so you don't have to think about organization during operation:

  • Activation folders — When you start a POTA activation, a folder is created automatically inside the Activations category. It is named using the ADIF convention: callsign@reference-YYYYMMDD (e.g., KA8H@K-1515-20201127). The date segment is UTC and records the day the activation opened, so an activation started on July 22 local time can correctly be named July 23 after UTC has crossed midnight. It is not a claim that every contact inside falls on that day — all contacts logged during that activation are saved here, including the ones you work after 0000 UTC. Imports follow the same rule: a contact whose UTC day falls inside a recorded session joins that session's folder rather than starting a new one. The general importer also creates activation folders when source contacts carry valid operator-side POTA activity identity. When a recorded start time is available, the folder tree displays the park name plus the activation's local date, start time, and timezone beneath the unchanged UTC folder name. Hamtrax uses the activation park's timezone when possible, then your current Hamtrax location, and explicitly labels UTC if no local timezone can be derived. Older activation folders without a recorded start time remain date-only. Open an activation folder and the date of its first contact appears as MM/DD/YY beside Activation, followed by the park reference, on phones, tablets, and desktop. The date uses the same UTC/local display choice as the contact rows. An empty activation folder omits the date but still shows the park reference in that row. If an activation has not yet been ended, the folder shows a pulsing green Active badge in the folder tree. Select the folder to see a Resume Activation button at the top of the detail view, letting you jump back into the active session without returning to the Activate tab. Rename the folder to whatever you find memorable — "Spring Mountain Trip" is fine — and it stays right where it is under Parks on the Air, with its submission identity intact. Started the activation at the wrong park? Use Edit beside Activation: the folder is renamed for the corrected reference and every contact inside is re-stamped to match.
  • Monthly folders — Program-qualified Hunt contacts, such as a worked POTA park, a foreign DX entity, or a repeater QSO, are filed into that program's monthly folder (e.g., "March 2026") — inside the Hunting category on a program that also activates, like Parks on the Air, or directly on the card of a hunt-only program like DX Chasing or Repeater contacts. The folder is created automatically on the first qualifying contact of the month. Ordinary, domestic, or otherwise unclaimed contacts require a custom folder instead of being guessed into a month. The month is the UTC month, and the rows inside display that same UTC date by default — so an evening hunt west of UTC never shows a date that disagrees with its folder. All safely resolved activity rows share one comfortable minimum height: POTA's Activations and Hunting parents align with their unbadged child folders, while multi-line Activation details can grow when they need more room. A safely resolved hunt-only month sits directly on its program card and shows its crest to the left of the title: the globe-and-radio-signal crest for DX, or the tower-and-signal crest for Repeaters. Opening it keeps that identity with Monthly DX Folder or Monthly Repeaters Folder. Missing or contradictory program identity stays unbranded rather than borrowing POTA's hunting badge or label.
    • One exception: while exactly one activation is live, contacts you hunt are filed into that activation's folder instead — you were at a park when you worked them, so they belong in the log you submit to POTA. A green You're activating card in the hunt panel says so whenever this is happening. Each program decides this for itself: POTA hunts join as park-to-park; DX contacts join as ordinary activation QSOs (the other station isn't at a park, so the park-to-park claim would be false); and Repeaters refuses to log at all on its hunt tab, because POTA doesn't count a contact made through a repeater. A contact dated outside the activation's UTC day files into its monthly folder as normal, whichever program it belongs to. See Hunting From a Park for the full rule.
That folder name is POTA's filename, not ours

Hamtrax didn't invent callsign@reference-YYYYMMDD. It is the exact format POTA asks you to submit logs under:

"callsign@parkNumber-activationDate.adi" (e.g., KA8H@US-1515-20201127.adi)

— POTA — Submitting Logs

Hamtrax stores that submission identity separately from the editable folder label, which is what makes renaming safe: the stored identity keeps driving your activation ADIF downloads, keeps the folder listed under its program, and keeps it accepting new contacts, no matter what you call the folder. That is why the date segment is UTC rather than your local day. POTA's own convention carries one date on a file that may cover more than one UTC day, which is exactly how Hamtrax treats the folder. See Exporting Contacts for the complete folder-filename rules.

Creating a manual folder​

Create a custom folder from the folder tree or while filing an unclaimed contact:

  • From the folder tree. Click the New folder button at the top of the custom-folders section, enter a name (e.g., "Field Day 2025" or "DXpeditions"), and click Create.
  • From global Add Contact. If no installed program safely claims the contact, the Log in row lists only custom folders and offers New. Name the folder, create it inline, and leave it selected; Save remains unavailable until a custom destination is selected.

Custom folders do not support nested subfolders, and you cannot create subfolders inside category, activation, or monthly folders.

Organizing contacts into folders​

  • From the Logbook's persistent Add Contact action: outside Bulk Edit, the general full form previews where the contact will be saved before writing anything. The same filing policy as Import prioritizes recognized My Location → From Park identity into your activation. Only a contact with no MY activity identity may route next to an explicit worked Hunt target such as Their Park, then a foreign DX entity. Unsupported or ambiguous identity stays intact and requires a custom folder; a recognized invalid reference is rejected instead of falling through. Hamtrax creates a missing monthly or finished historical activation folder only after that destination is resolved. Category folders do not hold contacts.
  • From a folder's Add Contact action: Each custom, monthly hunting, or activation folder opens its own folder- and program-specific quick-add card. A POTA month asks for a park; a DX month asks for a country/DXCC entity. Custom and activation cards own their exact destination. A monthly leaf owns the program while the contact's UTC date chooses or creates that program's destination month. See full contact form carries the draft plus any resolved target and target-owned location; unfinished target text stays unstamped until selected there. Compact and full forms save through one program-qualified path.
  • During import: The general importer auto-sorts every contact from an ADIF or CSV logbook into the right folder — activation folders for your activations, monthly folders for hunts, and a custom folder (optionally split by month, year, band, or mode) for everything else — creating each folder as needed. Every import action opens this same workflow.
  • After the fact: The current edit form does not move contacts between folders. Choose the right folder when logging so the auto-organization guardrails stay strict. The one after-the-fact fix works at the folder level instead: Edit beside Activation re-points that folder and every contact in it to the right park. See Manual Logging.

To keep this organization intact, the contact edit form locks the fields that define an auto-folder: the park, date, and your operating location in an activation folder, and the date in a monthly folder. Those fields appear read-only with a short explanation (for example, "Park is locked to US-2325 for this activation."), so an edit can't accidentally push a contact into a folder where it doesn't belong. The locked date shown is the UTC day — the identity the folder is named by. Every other field stays editable, and contacts in custom folders have no locked fields. Those locks are per contact; if the whole activation is at the wrong park, correct it at the folder level with Edit beside Activation instead. See Manual Logging for details, or the complete rule list in Logbook Hygiene Rules.

How the folder tree is sorted​

Folders are grouped and sorted automatically:

  • Automatic folders are grouped by award program first. Each program gets its own collapsible card. Section headings exist to tell a program's two kinds of folder apart, so a program that both activates and hunts splits its card into Activations and Hunting, while a program that only hunts has nothing to tell apart and lists its months directly on the card, with no subheading. Three programs are installed today: Parks on the Air shows both sections, while DX Chasing and Repeater contacts list their months straight under their own cards — a country can't be activated, and a repeater is a repeater you work rather than put on the air. A program's card doesn't clutter a logbook that never uses it: once your logbook has folders, a program with none contributes no card, so a POTA-only logbook shows just the Parks on the Air card, and the DX Chasing or Repeater contacts card appears with your first contact in that program. (A brand-new, empty logbook shows every installed program's card as a starting point.)
  • Activations are listed newest first, by activation date.
  • Monthly folders are listed newest first, by month — whether they sit under a Hunting heading or directly on their program's card.
  • Custom folders are sorted by most-recent contact activity -- whichever folder you logged into most recently rises to the top. Empty custom folders fall back to creation order.
  • Favorited folders are pinned in their own section above the main tree, regardless of category.

Folder operations​

ActionHow
RenameClick the pencil icon on a folder and enter a new name. Category folders cannot be renamed. Renaming is display-only: an activation folder you rename keeps its submission identity, stays listed under its program, and keeps accepting new contacts, so a friendly name like "Spring Mountain Trip" is perfectly safe. The one name Hamtrax refuses is one in the callsign@reference-YYYYMMDD form claiming a different park, date, or callsign than the activation actually has — to change the park itself, use Correct park below.
Correct parkWhile online, open an activation folder, click Edit beside Activation, search for the park you actually activated, and confirm. Hamtrax validates and changes the folder and every contact together; the update is all-or-nothing and safe to retry. Blocked if another activation folder already covers that park on the same date. Works even when the folder's saved park is unusable -- a park name where a reference belongs -- which is how a folder listed under Unrecognized program gets repaired.
MoveDrag a folder to a new parent, or use the context menu. Only custom folders can be moved; activation, monthly, and category folders are fixed in place.
DeleteWhile online, select a content folder, choose Delete from its detail toolbar, and complete the confirmation. Delete everything removes the folder tree and its contacts as one all-or-nothing change; nothing is moved to the parent. Associated media is removed with the deleted folders. On phones and tablets, a successful deletion returns you to the folder tree so you can see the folders that remain. Category folders cannot be deleted.
FavoriteToggle the favorite star on any folder. Favorited folders appear in a pinned Favorites section at the top of the folder tree for quick access.

When a folder contains contacts, the confirmation also offers Move to new folder. That option creates a custom destination, then moves every contact and removes the source folder tree together. Hamtrax never moves contacts automatically to the parent. If a correction or deletion is too large to complete safely as one operation, Hamtrax leaves the source unchanged instead of doing part of the work.

Favorite folders​

If you use certain folders frequently -- your main activation logbook, a current contest, or your daily operating folder -- you can favorite them so they always appear at the top of the folder tree.

Favorited folders appear in a dedicated Favorites section above the main tree, separated by a divider. This keeps your most-used folders one tap away, even when your folder tree has dozens of entries.

To remove a folder from favorites, toggle the favorite star again.

Folder equipment​

The Equipment area above a content folder is a read-only summary of the radio and antenna used by the most contacts in that folder. The count beside each profile shows how many contacts used it. Select Top Radio or Top Antenna to see how the summary is calculated and how to change the contacts behind it.

To update equipment on existing contacts:

  1. Select a folder in the logbook.
  2. Switch to List if you aren't already there — Bulk Edit sits directly under the List / Map / DX switch and appears only on the List tab, since it acts on the contact rows. Choose Bulk Edit. In the sticky bottom toolbar, Select all appears directly beside the selected-count label and changes to Clear all when every visible contact is selected. The List / Map / DX switch fades out above the contact list.
  3. Choose Set equipment, then use Change Radio, Change Antenna, or both.
  4. Choose Apply. Only the selected contacts change; leaving radio or antenna untouched keeps each contact's current value for that field.

While Bulk Edit is active, the folder's Equipment, Images, Stream Links, and Notes strip disappears to give contact selection more room. The List / Map / DX switch, the folder's own Add Contact, the Share map button beside that switch in the Contacts header, and the global Add Contact, Import Contacts, Download, and Delete actions also fade out so they cannot be mistaken for actions on the selected contacts. Everything returns when you cancel or finish the bulk edit.

Folder DX summary​

The DX position on the List / Map / DX switch summarizes a folder by place: the countries (and US states) its contacts reached, each with its flag and a contact count. A contact that carries no country of its own is counted by its callsign's prefix — Hamtrax carries the complete ITU call-sign series — so an imported log with sparse fields still summarizes.

Folder media​

Folders can hold more than just contacts. You can attach photos, notes, and stream links to any content folder:

  • Photos — Select a content folder (activation, monthly, or custom) to reveal its Images grid beneath the folder toolbar. All four photo slots show at once as a 2×2 square, so you can see how much room is left: the + button holds the top-left corner and placeholder squares stand in for the slots you haven't filled yet. Tap the + button and pick as many photos as you want in one go — you don't have to browse once per photo. Thumbnails fill in as each upload finishes, taking the placeholders' places; tap any thumbnail to open a full-screen lightbox. Delete a photo from the red X on its thumbnail. Each folder holds up to 4 photos — the + button hides while a folder is full, and if you select more than the folder has room for, Hamtrax adds what fits and tells you the limit was reached. When the batch finishes, Hamtrax confirms how many photos were added and how many the folder now holds. Hamtrax accepts JPEG, PNG, WebP, HEIC, and HEIF photos (iPhone photos work as-is) up to 10 MB each; if anything in your selection is oversized or an unsupported type, you get one message naming the first problem found rather than one per file, and the rest of the selection still uploads. Upload and deletion failures show a message, and accepted photos are compressed automatically for fast loading.
  • Notes — Add free-text notes from the folder's Notes row to record operating conditions, location details, or anything else worth remembering.
  • Stream links — Attach YouTube or other video links from the folder's Stream Links row. A stream link must be a full web address starting with http:// or https://; a partial address isn't saved. Hamtrax displays a thumbnail preview when it can derive one from the URL, and a saved link that isn't a web address is shown as plain, non-clickable text rather than opened.

Any folder with attached media displays a green camera icon inline in the folder tree, and folders with a livestream URL show a red video icon. These indicators also appear on activation cards under the Activations heading of that program's card on your Showcase.

tip

Use folders for time-bound or event-bound groupings: a specific contest, a field day, a vacation DXpedition, or a POTA activation trip. Auto-folders handle the routine organization; manual folders handle everything else.

Example folder structure​

Auto-created folders are grouped under the award program they belong to, so the Activations and Hunting headings always sit beneath the program that filled them — and a program that only hunts skips the headings entirely, listing its months directly on its card. A program card only appears once that program has folders — this example logbook has POTA, DX, and repeater contacts, so all three cards show. Custom folders keep their own section at the bottom.

Parks on the Air                           (award program group)
  |-- Activations                          (auto-created category)
  |     |-- KA8H@K-0817-20260301           (auto-created activation folder)
  |     |-- KA8H@K-4566-20260215           (auto-created activation folder)
  |-- Hunting                              (auto-created category)
        |-- March 2026                     (auto-created monthly folder)
        |-- February 2026                  (auto-created monthly folder)
DX Chasing                                 (award program group)
  |-- March 2026                           (auto-created monthly folder)
Repeaters                                  (award program group)
  |-- March 2026                           (auto-created monthly folder)
Custom folders
  |-- Contests                             (manual folder)
  |-- DXpeditions                          (manual folder)

The three "March 2026" folders are not duplicates: each program keeps its own months, so DX contacts, repeater contacts, and POTA hunts from the same month live in their own program's folder — see Logbook Hygiene Rules for the guardrail behind that.

If Hamtrax cannot safely tell which program an auto-created folder belongs to -- its saved program or reference details are missing, malformed, or contradict each other -- the folder is listed under an Unrecognized program heading below the program cards instead of being filed under a program it may not belong to. A folder that was never a program folder in the first place -- for example, a manually created subfolder sitting under the Activations or Hunting category -- is listed under a separate Other folders heading instead, since there is nothing about its program identity to review.

Renaming a folder is not one of the causes. A folder you renamed by hand keeps its saved identity and stays under its program; if you see a folder here, something about its stored program or reference details is at fault, not the name you gave it.

Repairing an activation folder listed here. If the folder is an activation and the problem is its park reference -- a park name was saved where a reference like US-1234 belongs -- open the folder and use Edit beside Activation to pick the real park. Hamtrax re-stamps the folder and every contact inside it together, and the folder returns to its program card and starts accepting contacts again. Correcting a park no longer requires the folder to already have a valid one.

Nothing is hidden or deleted. The folder keeps its name, every contact stays inside it, and you can still open, export, and delete it exactly as before. Only the heading it is listed under changes: because the program is unknown, it is listed on its own rather than under a category inside a program card. Hamtrax will not add new contacts to a folder in this state -- see Logbook Hygiene Rules -- so it is worth repairing where you can. Otherwise, if the folder cannot be repaired by correcting its park, move its contacts into a folder with a known program, or keep it as an archive.