Skip to main content

Search folders for all images by filter and move o a new folder

Answered
Andrew Jones

Hi

My cataloguing system/file system is a mess and I have decided that I want to develop a monthly folders system.

That is fine as long as I add new images to new folders. But I also want to go back, create folders (eg January 2021), find all relevant images (and associated files) and move them to a folder called "January 2021".

I am scared of deleting stuff.

I can successfully "search and find", but the "move" is defeating me. I can "copy and paste" and then "delete" but what am I deleting?

Is there a simple tutorial or video that cover this?

Many Thanks

Andrew

0

Comments

13 comments

Date Votes
  • Brian Lawson Community moderator

    What is the process you use to move your photos that keeps being defeated? You should be able to simply do a date search for January 2021 followed by a Select All then dragging the photos to the appropriate folder in the left side Catalogs or Browse panel. Rinse and repeat for each month of each year. You'll need to have the complete folder structure in place before you start and that can be done in either Photo RAW's Browser or your operating system's file manager.

    What you have to keep in mind is that performing the Search does not change your current location in the Browser. Whatever folder you are viewing when you perform the search is the folder you will be in after searching and moving the photos that were found.

    There is one caveat to all of this. If you drag a photo or a set of them from one drive to a different drive the photos will not be moved; they will be copied and the originals left in place. If you are on a Mac you can press the Option key to override that behavior and force the deletion of the source files once everything has been copied to the new drive. You'll see a Plus Sign indicator when files are going to be copied. If there isn't any Plus Sign they are being moved.

    0
  • Andrew Jones

    Hi Brian

    Thank you for your fast reply.

    You are absolutely correct.

    I think it was a fear of deleting everything that was my problem - not the program/technology.

    Thank you again.

    Andrew

    0
  • Brian Lawson Community moderator

    Understandable, no one want to loose photos.

    You should have a backup before you start this process just to insure against any accidental loss. Don't back up to that drive again until you are certain everything is in the correct location without any losses or duplications.

    0
  • Brian Lawson Community moderator

    Thanks Richard, I wasn't clear enough in my initial response but your suggestion is what I meant by doing a date search.

    0
  • Andrew Jones

    Thanks Brian,

    As you guessed I was doing it the long-winded way by doing a search/find of the drive between two dates.

    If I use the Dates function in the Catalogues, and move the resultant images to a folder, the result is that I have duplicated the images (they are in their original folder and in the new folder). Can I then safely delete the images produced by the Dates function?

    Hopefully the question was intelligible!

    Thanks

    Andrew

     

    0
  • Brian Lawson Community moderator

    Be very careful here Andrew. I just tested this by creating a copy of one of my photos, doing a Dates search for the date that photo was taken, then I dragged the copy I created to a different folder.

    Because I was still viewing the Dates search results (you can see the date in the breadcrumb trail, top left of the window) there was no change to the display. When I went back to the original folder for that photo the copy was gone and it was in the folder I had moved it to. This was all done on the same drive so the photo was in fact moved and not just copied.

    If your new dates folder structure is on a different drive then yes, you can delete the originals. If you are dragging between folders on the same drive then your photos should have been moved and not copied so you do not want to delete them after making that move.

    0
  • Brian Lawson Community moderator
    • Edited

    If your photos are in fact being duplicated, the Dates search will show both copies. I tested this also and got the following.

    0
  • Brian Lawson Community moderator

    Are you a Mac user? If so you can override the default behavior for dragging items between folders by pressing the Option key before releasing the mouse button. That will cause the opposite of the normal behavior—dragging to the same drive will copy the file while dragging to a different drive will move the file.

    Regardless of the Option key you will see a Plus sign next to the mouse pointer when the selected item(s) are going to be copied.

    0
  • Andrew Jones

    Sorry I should have thanked Richard for his input!

     

    Brian

    I have had a slightly different result.

    Searched by Date.
    Created receiving Folder.
    Selected All search results.
    Dragged to receiving Folder.
    Checked that that was successful.
    Then went to original folder and found that an original image was there - ie I had duplicated it.
    Redoing Search by Date, I now have two images. This suggests that I should/could have deleted the first results of the Dates search

    Now getting a bit confused - sorry my first experience of Cataloging.

    Only utilising one drive, and it is a Windows PC.

    Thanks for working with me on this.

    Andrew

    0
  • Brian Lawson Community moderator

    Because you've verified the duplication (twice!!) I feel safe in saying go ahead and get rid of the original. 😁 It's impossible to say what happened but I'd chalk it up to a random glitch.

    Just be careful to verify everything before deleting anything. I get the feeling we're working without a safety net (backup) here.

    0
  • Andrew Jones

    I'm going to take it one step at a time checking as I go.

    Thank you.

    0
  • Brian Lawson Community moderator

    I think the use of tags is a great idea. If the images are already color tagged for other reasons a MOVED keyword would work too.

    I don't see why there should be many more problems now that Andrew is using the drag & drop method. There could still be an occasional glitch so the tags/keyword will cover that.

    0
  • Andrew Jones

    Hi
    I have discovered that the folder organisation of my SSD is not as neat and tidy as I thought it was and I am in danger of developing an awful mess!
    So I have decided to undo/rewind what I have been trying to do for the last couple of days. This I appear to have successfully achieved with no files lost.
    This hasn't been a waste of time. It has taught me
    1) a lot about Catalogues and their usefulness and I shall be using them a lot more in future. IThe idea is relatively new to me.
    2) to be very careful exactly where I save files - particularly if I have sent them to an external program and saved the result.
    So I'm going to thank everyone for their help and leave this discussion (with hopefully my dignity still reasonably intact!)
    Thanks
    Andrew

    0

Please sign in to leave a comment.

Didn't find what you were looking for?

New post