Splitting file collections into folder hierarchies

This is one of the most commonly used features of the program.

The basic steps are simple and you are guided through them by the program's assistant-style user interface.

  1. Select the folder(s) that contain(s) the files you want re-organize
  2. Select one splitting criteria per folder hierarchy level from the popup list
  3. Select a scheme to resolve file name conflicts (e.g. when two files in the same folder would have the same name, they need to be differentiated appending a number or letter to the end of their name).
  4. Select a destination folder

Splitting file collections in batches

This is useful for splitting large file collections into easy-to-manage "chunks". The program can split files from one or more folders into "batches" of a given number of files or a given size on the disk, e.g. batches of 100 files or 100MB, ...

The basic steps are simple and the program's interface provides you with detailed information on each step:

  1. Select the folder(s) that contain(s) the files you want to split into batches
  2. Select the size of each batch
  3. Select the naming scheme for the batch folders (e.g. "0-99", "100-199", etc.
  4. Select a destination folder

Merging several file collections in a single folder

Sometimes, rather than needing to create a new file organization, you need to "un-wind" an existing one. In this case, your files are spread over several source folders and/or subfolders and you wish to place them all into one "big" folder.

The main challenge in doing this, aside from the tedious manual dragging and dropping of files, arises from the possibility of "file name conflicts", i.e. several files may share the same name and the Finder will refuse to let you move the files until you given them a unique name.

The basic steps involved in merging two or more folders or folder hierarchies are:

  1. Select the folder(s) that contain(s) the files you want to merge
  2. Select a file conflict resolution scheme
  3. Select a destination folder

The Big Mean Folder Machine will take care of the rest.

Confused by the word "folder hierarchy"?

A folder hierarchy is simply a series of folders placed one inside the other. Say you are organizing your photos by the year they were shot and the name of the event that you took them at. You might have a folder for "2007" and inside this folder, you might have a folder called "John's Wedding". Together "2007" and "John's Wedding" are a two-level folder hierarchy.