Here's another way to organize your POIs. Use this method if you have lots of POI files and you use manual mode with Poi Loader.

Source files (on the computer).
The directory structure looks like this:

My Poi

>Addresses
-- Addresses.gpx

> Restaurants (level 1 subfolder)
-- Restaurants.wav (or .mp3)
>> Restaurants (level 2 subfolder)
--- Burger Joints.bmp
--- Burger Joints.csv
--- Burger Joints.wav (or .mp3)
--- Dunkin Donuts.gpx

Notice that I added a .bmp file with the same name as the "level 2 subfolder" that lives in the "level 1 subfolder". What this does is define a default .bmp for every .csv or .gpx file in that subdirectory. For instance, I added Dunkin Donuts.gpx to the (Restaurants - the level 2 subfolder) subdirectory. That file has no matching .bmp or .mp3 file; therefore it will use the Restaurants.bmp file in the parent directory (Restaurants - the level 1 subfolder). Got that?

Compiled files (on the Garmin or SD card). Use the "Custom Folder" option of Poi Loader.
The directory structure looks like this:

Garmin
>Poi
>>Addresses
>>Restaurants

(You need to manually add the sub directories on the SD card).

Now, with this structure, when running Poi Loader you can load one sub directory at a time - WITHOUT overwriting the POIs you loaded previously. To do the Addresses POIs, when Poi Loader asks for the source file, point it to My Poi/Addresses. When Poi Loader asks for the output file, point it to Garmin/Poi/Addresses.

Addresses will become a category, and when you select it, it shows a list of POIs.

To do the Restaurants POIs, when Poi Loader asks for the source file, point it to My Poi/Restaurants. When Poi Loader asks for the output file, point it to Garmin/Poi/Restaurants.

Restaurants becomes a category, and when you select it, it has two subcategories: Burger Joints & Dunkin Donuts.

Did I explain that clearly enough?

Nice work! This really helps us out. :)

Oops, this structure...

My Poi

>Addresses
-- Addresses.gpx

> Restaurants (level 1 subfolder)
-- Restaurants.wav (or .mp3)
>> Restaurants (level 2 subfolder)
--- Burger Joints.bmp
--- Burger Joints.csv
--- Burger Joints.wav (or .mp3)
--- Dunkin Donuts.gpx

should be this...

My Poi

>Addresses
-- Addresses.gpx

> Restaurants (level 1 subfolder)
-- Restaurants.bmp
>> Restaurants (level 2 subfolder)
--- Burger Joints.bmp
--- Burger Joints.csv
--- Burger Joints.wav (or .mp3)
--- Dunkin Donuts.gpx

I posted this somewhere else, but really it's a Garmin issue. How do I control the buzz when I get within the proximity of an alert, like a speed trap or red light camera? I like it warning me, but it seems to buzz for too long. Can I hit something to kill the alarm, or can I configure it to be shorter?
Thanks

Charles - Followed you instructions (i think to the letter) when I use poi loader to send to my garmin, all I get when I press extras is custom pois, when I press that all I get is the list of the pois, no separate All cats box & no separate poi title box.
When I send the pois to my sd card, the Garmin asks If i want to import so that the Garmin can use the info when card removed. I answer yes. When I remove the card I then press extras then custom pois, I then get an all cats box, but two identical title boxes. When I press either one I get an identical list of all the pois.
What seemed so easy has got me stummped.
Have you any ides?
Thanks

Can you show us how you have the files laid out?You stated that when you touch custom pois you get a list of pois.By any chance did you make a folder and called it my pois and just put all the csv files in it?That would explain why you would only get a list of pois.You have to make folder My Pois and right click on it and make subfolders for each category and put each csv file in proper subfolder.Like subfolder category called food you would want all csv files you put in that subfolder to show up when you touch food.

I followed your instructions to the letter ie made mypois folder then within that i created two sub folders,caravan sites & wifi, within those folders i placed the appropriate csv & bmp files, then uploaded to the Garmin.
Just by chance i have now got what i want ie custom pois then the all catagories and two boxes, caravan sites & wifi. The list of the pois are in each catagory. This was ony by experimenting by loading them onto the sd card as per instructions. but not into the Garmin. When switched on the I was asked if I wanted the info from the card to placed in the Garmin, pressing yes, the files were placed in the machine and work perfectly, 1one box all catagories, one box caravan sites & one box wi fi, with all the respective pois within, without the card in. I seem to have succeeded in a roundabout way. I will persevere with your solution in the meantime, without using the sd card in between.Thanks for your prompt reply.

Glad you got it.Have fun loading more files.

dragonfly .The only thing I think you may do is to run the file again with poiloader and select manual mode and reduce the distance you want to be alerted at.The words redlight or speed in the file name sets alert at 1/4 mile when you run poiloader in the express mode.Using manual mode you can over-ride that setting.Lots of users use those key words in the csv title to avoid using manual mode to set alerts.Other then that you can just turn the alert or volume off.You are finding that alerts can sometimes become annoying.When starting out I wanted all kinds of alerts but found out real quick its easier just to touch custom pois and add the one you want to the route .

dragonfly.Here is some info from poiloder help that explains it a little better.
If the file name contains "redlight", POI Loader assumes all records in the file have proximity alerts with a distance of 400m/0.25 miles.

If a file contains "GATSO," "mobile," "SPECS," "safety," "speed," or "camera," but does not have a speed, POI Loader uses a default alert speed of 0, which means you will always be alerted. You can override this default value by entering the speed in Manual mode.

You can also enter speeds for each POI individually by adding the @ symbol and a number after the name of the POI. For example, a Custom POI named "Ridgeview@25" would create a POI named "Ridgeview" with a 25 mph speed alert.

Hi, guys,

I am pretty new at this. I have purchased Garmin 265W nuvi. I am trying to downloan POIs with the .bmp logo file.
I created a separate directory
my POI
different subdirectories for different kinds of POI inlucuding the .bmp and .cv files
I set up allert based on the proximity to POI.
However, when I activate the GPS, i do see those under extras, but I do not see the POI which are located withing a noticable proximity to my route on the map.

What do I do?

Just a quick note to same I had a similar issue to some of the people above... namely:
(I have a Garmin Nuvi 855)
- I set up a folder structure as detailed above, in order to have my POIs in categories.
- Tried to use POI Loader (on a Mac btw) to add these to the device. It would stick them all under Custom POI without subfolders.
- With certain of the csv files (all downloaded from POIFRIEND) the POI Loader would crash when it was trying to send to device... so I'd get no report on a successful upload. I am not sure which files were crashing it.
- The way I got this to work was to insert a microSD card, use POI Loader to send the data to their, and then let the 855 prompt me to install those files onto the device (when I restarted it).
This method worked. I now have them all in categories.

Regards,

Jonathan

PS. I made the mistake of using the GARMIN DIRECT option on this site. Bad move. I now have 50 unwanted FAVORITES to manually delete.
I understand from comments in the forums here that there is no way to delete those except manually doing it on the device. Correct? Is there no favorites files I can delete or replace or edit in a text editor or something?