Disambiguating org-refile in case of duplicate buffer names?

Question

I have several project directories with the same structure. As a result, I am often annoyed when I have to refile (C-c C-w) some sections because several buffers have the same names.

For instance, the list of targets Emacs shows me is something like:

workInProgess.org/Tasks
workInProgess.org/Tasks
...

How can I configure Emacs to disambiguate these refile targets name?

Answer 1

A first solution solution is to define

(setq org-refile-use-outline-path 'full-file-path)

you will get full file paths, however, this can be quite long:

/home/MyHome/...long_path_here.../MyProjectA/workInProgess.org/Tasks
/home/MyHome/...long_path_here.../MyProjectB/workInProgess.org/Tasks
...

and thus reduce readability.

A second solution, I prefer, is to use:

(setq org-refile-use-outline-path 'buffer-name)

in conjunction with the uniquify package.

Once configured with:

(require 'uniquify)
(setq uniquify-buffer-name-style 'post-forward-angle-brackets)

you will get (when refiling):

workInProgess.org<MyProjectA>/Tasks
workInProgess.org<MyProjectB>/Tasks
...

which it the best of two worlds: short but unambiguous refile targets.

---

Note: to make it works with helm (M-x helm-mode) you must let Org generates all of the possible completions and present them at once thanks to:

(setq org-outline-path-complete-in-steps nil)