Unzipping multiple zips from multiple folders?
May 20, 2010 5:23 AM Subscribe
I have a large folder on my iMac which contains several subfolders, and every subfolder contains one or more .zip files. How can I unzip all of those files at once and output everything (from every single zip file) to yet another, separate location?
The folder in question is the Project Gutenberg DVD, a 4 plus gig file which I bittorrented, then copied the contents of the .iso to a single folder. So obviously there are a ton of ebooks but they're cataloged on the DVD rather strangely.
I have StuffIt for Mac, but if that will do the job I can't figure it out. If the solution calls for getting under the hood with Terminal, please type slowly; I'm a code n00b.
And lastly, if I manage to get all the files into one location, any good software/technique for organizing those ebooks?
The folder in question is the Project Gutenberg DVD, a 4 plus gig file which I bittorrented, then copied the contents of the .iso to a single folder. So obviously there are a ton of ebooks but they're cataloged on the DVD rather strangely.
I have StuffIt for Mac, but if that will do the job I can't figure it out. If the solution calls for getting under the hood with Terminal, please type slowly; I'm a code n00b.
And lastly, if I manage to get all the files into one location, any good software/technique for organizing those ebooks?
Open terminal and do a:
find ~/whateverthefoldernameis -name *.zip -exec unzip {} -d ~/someoutputdirectory \;
The output directory doesn't need to already exist. The ~/ is unix speak for your home folder, which is where I assume this is. If not, you'll need to specify the whole path.
posted by pjaust at 5:59 AM on May 20, 2010
find ~/whateverthefoldernameis -name *.zip -exec unzip {} -d ~/someoutputdirectory \;
The output directory doesn't need to already exist. The ~/ is unix speak for your home folder, which is where I assume this is. If not, you'll need to specify the whole path.
posted by pjaust at 5:59 AM on May 20, 2010
That will put them all in their original directory structure, though. I assume this is what you'll want, 'cause otherwise you may wind up overwriting files with non-unique names.
You can do a similar thing to copy them all to a single huge folder.
mkdir ~/somenewoutputdirectory; find ~/someoutputdirectory -name *.whateveranebook'sextensionis -exec cp {} ~/somenewoutputdirectory \;
posted by pjaust at 6:03 AM on May 20, 2010
You can do a similar thing to copy them all to a single huge folder.
mkdir ~/somenewoutputdirectory; find ~/someoutputdirectory -name *.whateveranebook'sextensionis -exec cp {} ~/somenewoutputdirectory \;
posted by pjaust at 6:03 AM on May 20, 2010
I use Calibre for almost all of my e-book needs. It'll convert book formats for you and organize them by author and title, and you can use it to edit metadata as needed, either in batches or individually.
posted by alynnk at 6:31 AM on May 20, 2010
posted by alynnk at 6:31 AM on May 20, 2010
Best answer: 1. Search for .zip in the main folder containing all the zips. (make sure it is only searching that folder and not your whole drive.
2. Select all (command + a)
3. drag or copy drag them (hold down option key when dragging) from spotlight/search results to a new folder.
4. Go to new folder, select all, and unzip.
5. Delete all the .zips from new folder.
posted by travis08 at 7:12 AM on May 20, 2010
2. Select all (command + a)
3. drag or copy drag them (hold down option key when dragging) from spotlight/search results to a new folder.
4. Go to new folder, select all, and unzip.
5. Delete all the .zips from new folder.
posted by travis08 at 7:12 AM on May 20, 2010
Response by poster: Thanks, everyone, I think travis08's is the simplest one for me.
posted by zardoz at 4:54 AM on May 21, 2010
posted by zardoz at 4:54 AM on May 21, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by zardoz at 5:24 AM on May 20, 2010