Help me orgainize five years of media spread across several media!

August 16, 2007 7:34 PM

How do I put all pictures (videos, all extensions) on my computer into one folder, and then delete the duplicates-and pics with the same name should be renamed if different?

I would like to go to each of my hard drives and CDs, and have the computer weed out the tremendous number of duplicate pictures- after making sure that no pictures are unnacounted for if they are saved to someplace other then my pictures.

what is the best way to do this?

do get rid of duplicates, I can use a program like NoClone- Is this the best way?

The problem with using picasa is that they seem to change the quality of my pictures- and i want to merge all pictures into the same folder for organizing.

I should also add that i need to make sure that i dont have videos that get lost since that format is not included in a search- like if i search gor all .mov, mpg...

and if the solution provided would work for audio, and other files like docs and pdf,s i'd be even greatful-ler!!

posted by Izzmeister to computers & internet (12 comments total)

which OS?
posted by sharkfu at 8:13 PM on August 16, 2007

ooops. Windows XP.

(windows users are more prone to forget such details... :} )
posted by Izzmeister at 8:38 PM on August 16, 2007

You should try out directory opus, it has the ability to check for duplicates of files.
posted by __ at 8:56 PM on August 16, 2007

maybe Clone Spy? There are other suggestions listed in the comments of that link...
posted by sharkfu at 9:29 PM on August 16, 2007

Found a link (via) to XXCopy...

still looking.. this dos stuff is too complicated! :(
posted by Izzmeister at 9:59 PM on August 16, 2007

Right now, I'm doing DOS Prompt:

XXCOPY C:\*.doc D:\mydocs\ /SX

and copying all .jpg files on my hard disk into one folder on another hard drive...

let's see how this works... i'll take more ideas, and i'm updating the results in case someone else comes across this same issue...
posted by Izzmeister at 10:11 PM on August 16, 2007

Stamp works well for moving sets of files - and renames name in chronological order based in the EXIF metadata. It wont delete dupes though as far as I can remember.
posted by whatisish at 10:11 PM on August 16, 2007

alternate, via:

Do a windows search for ... *.jpg in the top folder ... (for example) ...

Then from the search results ... Select all (CRTL+A) .. Copy (CRTL+C) ..

Then paste (CRTL+V) to the new folder.
posted by Izzmeister at 10:15 PM on August 16, 2007

thank you whatisish! This looks like someting promising! downloading now!!!
posted by Izzmeister at 10:17 PM on August 16, 2007

I recently moved 8000+ photos using Stamp and it did the job without problems - except that it appeared to 'hang' while it was chugging away. If that happens, let it be, it'll finish up fine eventually.
posted by whatisish at 10:22 PM on August 16, 2007

would stamp only work for photos? how about videos?

so far i'm not getting it to work- cuz it seemed to be hanging --- :)

any idea about using stamp for videos audio or other files? what does it do with duplicates?

many thanks!
posted by Izzmeister at 10:29 PM on August 16, 2007

Yes, it filters by any file extension you define. Duplicates get the same name but with an numerical extension on it - so you could really just delete those after the fact.
posted by whatisish at 7:07 AM on August 17, 2007