i have Seriously Nested Folder Heirarchy Syndrome (SNFHS) sometimes and i would like a tool that will let me manage this condition by extracting all the files from any particular parent folder and all subfolders.
is there a balm for this condition in the form of an app or script even if i won't cure it?
TIA
Open the parent folder and type Command + F. Select Kind = Document. That should display a list of all files in the folder and sub folders.
You can then select all and drag them to a single designated folder.
Open the parent folder and type Command + F. Select Kind = Document. That should display a list of all files in the folder and sub folders.
You can then select all and drag them to a single designated folder.
I know this thread is a few years old but I read through it and felt compelled to reply. I had an SMS folder from my iphone that contained over 1,000 pictures. The folder had literally 500 sub folders. It would've taken me hours to sort it. I thought there might have been an application I could get to sort it. I was almost willing to pay for such app but a simple google search brought me here. Your solution worked PERFECTLY and showed me I had no need for any app outside of my Mac's own finder. The fact that the OP of this thread couldn't figure out your instructions and had the temerity to accuse you of giving bad advice is comical. You tell him how to open a file in finder and he thinks "this thread almost trashed my system." LOL You said nothing about trashing anything. Well that's about it. Your advice was extremely helpful and the OP is the one who owes you an apology if any apology was required.
Open the parent folder
That was my first statement. I assumed you would know which was the parent folder you were referring to. If you had done that and then typed Command + F the top would have shown this:
As for checking your backup at some point you're going to have to take responsibility for your own actions or, in this case, inactions. If making sure the backup was good is so important now why didn't you do it without having to be reminded?
hi OT.
not to sound cranky here but i think it is really bad form to give advice and then assume that someone has run a backup prior to attempting the suggestion. i mean, i am not ungrateful for the help on the list but this is probably a good time to remind everyone of the importance of being scrupulous about verifying that a backup has recently occurred.
i probably could have thought of this myself so it is a good reminder for me as well!
regards.
that is an admirably elegant and measured response. Sir, 1000 blessings on your head, I bought an iXpand thumb drive to take some videos and photos off my phone, but the drive has a nested fold structure, with one folder per month, so it's very difficult to double-check that every photo/video is indeed backed up before deleting them, and I didn't even know if there was a way to display them all in one list, like the All Photos folder on an iPhone but by God there is, and what an beautifully simple solution, thanks to you ! Not only that, but it will also be very handy for my OSX Photos app backups, (and old Time Machine backups) since they too have the nested folder structure by default. No doubt that structure has advantages but it has always felt counter-intuitive to me, so I'm overjoyed to have a found an easy way around it. Have a great day Mr Toad !!!!! 🙂
If you're familiar with UNIX try the 'find' command in Terminal.
hi OT.
oh gosh, i think i just made a big mistake here.
is there a way to undo this operation?
there is something really sort of confusing about this (i am on ML at the moment) in that the FINDER window that gets opened up just says "searching This Mac" at the top and then it shows "Search: This Mac | All My Files" in the top just under the title of the window. i mean, there does not appear to be any way to determine that i am actually searching this one folder that i opened that is on my desktop /except/ by assuming that it was the window that was in fact open when i ran CMD + F.
am i missing something here or do you know what i mean? i mean, if i happened to accidentally click on another open finder window before running CMD + F there would be no way for me to know that i was about to move a bajillion files from the wrong folder. - or god forbid all my documents from THIS MAC or something?
i just went back to look to check the folder that i moved everything to just in case and i am actually thinking that i have made a big mistake while time machine is off...
can you help?
- jon
hi OT. i was trying to reply to make sure i understood what i just did because it was a tad confusing in the UI. is there something totally messed up if you try this with a folder on the desktop or something? i ran CMD + F and then pulled down to documents and i think i just moved all my documents from somewhere /else/ and CMD + Z is not running an undo...
You are searching all of the file on your Mac's hard drive.
You haven't moved any files yet, have you? Just close that window. Then open the parent folder manually and try again. Be sure the folder name you're searching is highlighted next to This Mac before starting.
i just moved them all and i have 4000 files in this folder and no undo worked.
i just got in there and started sorting but i just ran into my PVM file which is 70 GB and is for my virtual machine.
i am certain i just hosed this this big time but it is not possible that i moved all the documents on my hard drive to this one folder so i have absolutely no idea what i just did...
not a good day on the computer today
Restore your hard drive from the backup copy made prior to this happening. With Time Machine it's relatively easy to do.
yeah, the name of the folder does not highlight and AFAIK it has never highlighted. i don't know if this is an issue when doing this from a folder on the desktop though.
anyone remember where my pvm file goes?
if i put that back i only have 3 GB of miscellanous and now sorted files to put back.
also, anyone have any ideas where these files came /from/?
i can't tell if they came randomly somehow from folders on my desktop, from my dropbox, or what but if it picked up a pvm file it sure must have been doing something somewhere….
i don't have time machine on because i have to turn it off when i boot into windows and it doesn't always get turned back on.
"Restore your hard drive from the backup copy made prior to this happening…."
; <
i think you mean "oops, sorry"...
ach. this was a nightmare.
with all due respect i seriously suggest not recommending this to others and if you do to advise them to "MAKE SURE THE FOLDER YOU WANT TO UNCOLLAPSE IS LISTED IN FINDER". i say this in part because i have never found this search function to work very well in Mountain Lion and even in this case it is unclear as to what i exactly did.
i think i have this under control but does anyone know what may have happened here based upon the screenshot?
i /seem/ to have moved a large number of files from my dropbox but i also move my pvm file from the Parallels folder in my Documents folder. additionally there seems to be a decent number of email attachments that got moved.
in all i can't quite tell what i did by attempting this and beyond not doing it again it could be helpful to get a handle on what happened. that said, this find feature in Finder in Mountain Lion has always behaved squirrelly in my opinion so i never use it...
Extract all files from Parent Folder and Subfolders
