Program to sort and move files based on date

[zeb_lisik]

For digital photos I use 2 programs already: Picasa and photoshop cs2. to my

knowledge neither of these do what im looking for.

 

I want a program that will organize, based on date, my photos on the hard drive.

i should move the files to a folder based on date(and create said folder if it

dosnt exist), folder naming format is YYYYMMDD. it should be a program that i

run whenever i need it, not something thats constantly running or periodically

scans a particular folder.

 

i know there must be some simple program out there or even a script of some sort

but i havn't been able to find it. most of the file/photo ogranizers/managers

out there try to do so many other things and i havn't been able to find one that

meets my specific needs.

 

any help would be appreciated.

[phule]

You want a program to change the creation date of your photos based on the name of folder they are in?

[Matt Laur]

Zeb: Your computer's operating system (you don't mention what you're using... Linux? Mac? Windows?) will show you the content of any folder, sorted any way you want... by name, by file size, <i>by date</i>.

<br><br>

It's trivial to just sort the folder by date, select a group of files, and drag them over to another folder. About four mouseclicks.

<br><br>

Depending on the operating system, there are going to be ways to do this with scripts and batch files, but that will only work if you also pass parameters to those scripts that tell them - for the particular way in which you're going to use them that day - what critieria they're supposed to take into account. The few keystrokes that would take each time would take at least as much time as just viewing a folder by descending or ascending date, selecting a range (click, shift-click), and moving the files into another open folder.

<br><br>

Contemporary operating system user interfaces give you ten ways to do everything, but there's usually at least one way that's much simpler than most people expect. Of course, I could be underestimating some aspect of your situation... but (for example), in Windows XP, a folder full of image files can be sorted by the date the file was last modified, or even by the date the image was taken... no matter what else has been done to the file since. Presto! Sort, copy/cut, paste. Done. No need for extra software getting in between you and your file housekeeping.

[mendel_leisk]

I use ACDSee for that. It's an image viewer shareware program. You set the folder content to sort by date, then select all, then choose batch rename. It's about $60~$80. CKRename is a freeware batch rename utility that also will likely do what you want. For sure test any such software out on dummy files till you get comfortable with it.

[zeb_lisik]

Ah im sorry, im using windows XP.

 

Rob,

i do not want to change the creation date of the photos.

 

Matt,

don't forget creating the folder, changing the folder name, going into each folder copied from my flashcard, selecting the right files, going back, copying, going to the next folder from my flashcard, seeing if some of the files belong in the previously copied to folder, creating more folders.... etc

 

it may be a few mouse clicks for one day of photographs, and if done religiously after taking any shots it'd be easy. but im not that disciplined to keep on top of file organization. also i went on a trip to a wedding and graduation over 10 days, i don't use a laptop so i had to organize all my photos after i got back home. suddenly i have to organize a ton of photos spanning a number of days.

 

file organization is a mundane task, something that can and is automated. at times i find myself not wanting to take photos, rip cds or download music because i know that beyond that lies the dreadful task of organization! haha

 

 

If my previous explanation was unclear, I will attempt to describe my situation more clearly.

 

I'm copying photos from a flashcard to my computer, the photos are arranged in several folders on the flashcard (i cant remember what the max# per folder is, but its not high).

 

I organize my photos physically on the hard drive like this:

D:\photos\20070112

D:\photos\20070113

D:\photos\unsorted

 

when i copy the folders from the flashcard, i copy them to 'unsorted'

 

I create folders in the photos directory based on the date the photos were taken.

 

I copy said photos to the corresponding folder

 

I delete the old, empty folders in 'unsorted'

[zeb_lisik]

Mendel,

 

I've used ACDSee in the past and wasn't really impressed, but that was like 8 years ago. Does it move the files on your hard drive or does it just change the organization of them when viewing your files through the program itself? I believe many programs behave that way, they never actually organize files on the hard drive, they just keep pointers to whereever the file is located and show you an organized view through their front ends. The biggest example is music managing software.

 

If you organize your files in ACDSee then use windows explorer to navigate your photos, will they be organized?

[phule]

Zeb,

 

What camera do you have?

[curt wiler]

It's easiest to create these folders when the files are downloaded from the cards. Breeze Downloader Pro is probably the best and least expensive program to do this. Photo Mechanic is more expensive and can do much more. Both will create folders in any name format you want based on the exposure date of the images, and drop the appropriate images into them.

[godfrey]

Lightroom.

 

G

[zeb_lisik]

Curt,

 

thanks very much, i believe the breeze downloader pro meets all my needs.

[phule]

[[the photos are arranged in several folders on the flashcard (i cant remember what the max# per folder is, but its not high)]]

 

This behavior sounds like a Canon camera, hence my question about yours. The Canon Zoombrowser software that was supplied with your camera does what you want already. It downloads photos into folders created with your naming scheme based on the date values in the EXIF data. There's no need to go into the multiple folders created on the memory card.

 

If you don't have a Canon camera, then the point is moot.

[ellis_vener_photography]

Both Adobe Bridge (and bridge 2) and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom can do this.

[mendel_leisk]

Zeb, ACDSee will batch rename them in order, typically a constant prefix and an ascending suffix, based on whatever order you currently have them arranged, that can be by name, or by date, or you can drag them into a custom order. It will not create folders or doing anything fancier, afaik.

 

I would think CKRename is similar in capability, but I've not explored it much. At the price (free), it's worth exploring.

[marc_rochkind]

My ImageIngester can copy files to the folder structure you set up, based on various criteria, including date (modification date of file or embedded EXIF date).

[tricky_t]

Over the years I have owned many cameras. When I linked the cameras to the PC, all cameras transferred the photos to the "My Pictures" folder. However, each camera had its own way of naming the sub folder and the photo. Folders have been created with inconsistent structures like:

/my pictures/year/month/*.jpg,

/my pictures/ddmmyyyy/*.jpg,

/my pictures/yyyy month/*.jpg,

/my pictures/camera name/downloaddate/*.jpg,

/my pictures/yymmdd/*.jpg

/my pictures/*.jpg.

 

As a result the my pictures folder is a big mess with hundreds of folders and sub folders, and tens of thousands of files. I want to sort them, but don't have the time to manually sort tens of thousands of files.

 

All I want to do is take everything in the "my pictures folder" and all its sub-folders, and move them to a new hierachial folder structure according to the creation month. Thus I will end up with folders named like the following:

 

/my pictures/200201/*.jpg

/my pictures/200202/*.jpg

/my pictures/200203/*jpg

...........

/my pictures/200808/*.jpg

/my pictures/200809/*.jpg

 

I have searched for software which could this sort of rule based sorting, but so far I can not find the right program. It must exist. Anyone got an answer?

 

(I am using Windows XP by the way..)

 

Thanks