Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with folders

Navigating folders on windows desktop

long — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:59:17 -0800

Is there a way to navigate folders on the Windows XP desktop? That is, I want to be able to click folder A on the desktop and have the desktop switch to displaying folder A's contents.

Is there a way to create folders or otherwise organize my email inbox?

iamkimiam — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 08:24:08 -0800

Is there an app/script/somethin'-sweet I can install on my Mac(s) that will allow me to organize my email INBOX? I'd like to be able to group, folder, or rearrange the items in my email inbox so that I can deal with them more efficiently. Viewing by subject/date/time/etc. will not solve my organization problem. I do NOT want to take them out of my inbox in any way (my rule is that I can't do that until I've dealt with it). I'm currently using Apple Mail, and would like to continue to do so. Thanks!

Where do I find a new MP3 player with all the features of my old iriver H320?

AZNsupermarket — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 14:15:59 -0800

Where do I find a new MP3 player with all the features of my old iriver H320? Hey Metafilter!
This is my first time asking a question so here goes. I really like my old iriver H320, but it's very old and it may be nearing the end of its lifespan. The weird thing is that it seems to have a lot of features that modern MP3 players don't have. I was wondering if anyone can recommend an mp3 player that basically does the following:

1. When you plug it in to the computer, the computer treats the MP3 player as a hard drive. I want to be able to rename, change, and move around songs without having to use itunes, Windows Media Player, or any other annoying software.

2. I want my MP3 player to act like a hard drive when I'm on the go. I especially want to be able to see my various folders that contain my music, see file names, and not have to use id3 tags.

Using third party firmware on a newer mp3 player isn't out of the question, but I really wasn't crazy about rockboxes' interface on my iriver, so I would prefer using first party firmware instead (assuming that any exists that meets my needs).

Thank You!

Is there a good folders comparison tool for Mac?

Leech — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 15:06:43 -0800

I need a good and fast tool to compare two folders side by side, with the ability of exclude .SVN and other useless files. I've found some ones like Compare Folders and DeltaWalker but I haven't tried these yet. Do you recommend them?

Turning folders into disk images on OS X

spyke23 — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 11:28:59 -0800

Automating turning folders into disk images in OS X Leopard. I'm starting to use Amazon S3 for backups, and rather than having a single big disk image for my photos, which would equate to 4.3GB, I would prefer to have single multiple folders to upload, and then be able to download/upload disk images as needed. I could then use then use the same process for my work related backups. Is there anyway to automate this process, or any utility which will take a folder and automatically turn it into a disk image of the same size?

MacFilter

bad grammar — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 20:00:22 -0800

Why can't I pick up and drag my Mac's desktop folders smoothly? Often they don't move at all, or they snap back as if on rubber bands when I move and drop them. Specifics: I have a MacBook from 2006 with Mac OS X 10.4.8. I am using a 1024 x 640 setting for the display.

The problem is minor but it makes tidying up the desktop (manually) rather difficult.

Can an Automator Workflow/App Find Itself?

Xuff — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 12:06:13 -0800

Obscure Mac geekery filter... On OS X Leopard, how can I get a reference to the current location of an Automator workflow/app in a shell script within that workflow? I've got a complex Automator workflow that currently has to move files in and out of various directories. Currently these directories live in a specific location that's hard coded into the workflow. What I'd like to do is have the workflow be able to reference it's own package and create the directories it needs inside itself (ex. /some/random/path/myworkflow.workflow/Contents/niftyFolders) or, barring that, just create the directories in the same directory the workflow itself is currently in. Unfortunately I can't find a way to get the location of the workflow itself.

I'm thinking the most likely way to do it at this point is with AppleScript, and I've looked into that a little, but have come up empty. AppleScript and I have never clicked, so I thought I'd turn to all of you.

Thanks!

Clean up my "Documents" folder!

mikespez — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 15:23:18 -0800

How do I hide folders in OS X that other programs need regular access to? If you're like me and use a Mac with Applications on it, you'll find that your Documents folder is frequently cluttered up with stuff you don't want to see. I Have folders titled "Microsoft User Data", "OmniFocus Backups", and "Quicken Backup Folder" to name a few.

I want to hide these so I'm not bothered by them. I don't think I can do the typical Unix trick, when you begin the filename with a ".", the file is made invisible without disrupting Office, OmniFocus, and Quicken by changing the name of the folder. Is there any other way?

Mix folders and files alphabetically in XP Details view?

Grand Wahzoo — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 16:06:30 -0800

Mix folders and files alphabetically in XP Details view? I don't want them sorted by name showing folder-names separate from file-names. Mixed was always the default Mac way, which I still crave. After years on XP I still haven't found a way. I've tried various 3rd party multi-pane file managers and did find one to do that, but it costs too much. Also, another freeware manager but it's only single-pane. I want either a simple regedit or a freeware multi-pane manager.

MP3 CD Woes

snap_dragon — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 07:25:51 -0800

How to burn Mp3 random mixes (not entire albums) into several folders on Macintosh for easy navigation in my car cd player...I used to be able to make mp3 discs of whatever songs i wanted and then place them into folders on my desktop, then burn them to disc. It seems that Itunes only allows some form of folder separation (if any at all) by sorting things only by each group's album. This is not helpful if you want several folders with random songs in each folder...for example...I want one folder with songs by rock groups..another that is jazz...whatever. On the new imac, it does not seem to let me take the drag and dropped mp3s in folders on my desktop to a burn disc icon as it did in my older G4. Any suggestions on software or a simpler way around this? I appreciate your input. When it did work, it worked great and saved me from using a crummy fm transmitter on my ipod. The mp3 cds for me sound much better and are easily disposable if left in car.

How do I de-iTunes my music folder?

criticalbill — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 09:26:23 -0800

Is there an easy way to resort my iTunes folder back into by albums, instead of by artists? I have given up on iTunes for various reasons (firstly that it was running appallingly slow, but also that it didnt have flac support) and haven't reinstalled it since i reinstalled my OS. My iTunes folder is huge, vast, sprawling, ordered by artist/album/track (after I inadvisadly let it reorder all the music in my iTunes library) , filled with hundreds of compilation albums and mixtapes etc so this is a real problem. It would be much much easier to use other players if it was album/artist/track. Any ideas short of wasting a week of my life? I'm a XP,SP2 kind of a guy.

How do I get Thunderbird to recognize my password?

thekorruptor — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 18:42:43 -0800

Thunderbird Help -- I have no idea how it happened but all of my folders and emails have disappeared. One day, I opened Thunderbird and it started the process for setting up a new account. I thought this was no big deal, I searched online and found the right pop.mail.server etc. When I was done, thunderbird didn't recognize my password (and still doesn't).
I called my ISP (Cox), who confirmed that I had the correct password (I already knew this as I logged onto my email through the web).
So I've basically been using the web the last couple of weeks. But I don't have any of my old emails nor my Address book. I searched online for a solution, found this page that I thought was appropriate but frankly it's above my head. I know just enough to get around & get myself in trouble.

Please help. I'm sorry if this explanation was not clear enough, ask questions if needed. + please explain like I'm complete n00b.

Okay, I'm stumped.

InsanePenguin — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 17:39:12 -0800

Scriptfilter: I want a list of filenames dumped into text file and put somewhere. How!? Okay, so I've gotten religious about backing up my HDD, but I don't waste the space backing up my applications, aside from a few important ones. Instead, I'd prefer just a list of the files inside my Application folder so I can go and download them if I need to.

Soooo, is there any way that I can write a script that will 1) grab the names of all the files in a specific folder, 2) dump all the file names into a text file (or similar,) and 3) save that folder where ever I so choose.

I'm on a Mac, if it matters at all (AppleScript, or whatnot)

Where is the list of hidden folders kept?

jon4009 — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 14:24:22 -0800

Mac OS X filter: In terminal, if I go to / and ls, I see a bunch of folders that are hidden in Finder, for example /etc, /private, /sbin, and so on. How do I add a folder to that list? In the dark recesses of my memory I remember there being some kind of file somewhere that contains a list of the paths that the Finder should hide, but my Google-fu is failing me and I can only find people telling me how to turn ON the "show hidden files and folders" option, which isn't what I want at all!

If you care, it's because I have a /sw folder that Fink created, that I want to be hidden too. Any pointers greatly appreciated.

Help me sort out the missorted files Windows is presenting me with, if you please.

freudenschade — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 20:51:05 -0800

Indulge me for a moment: seemingly stupid Windows XP-based problem... All of a sudden, every time I go to open a document or save something in all my Office programs and even in Firefox, the folder contents in the "Save As" or "Open" window display backwards. As in, reverse alphabetical order, with subfolders at the end. I can't believe something like this has bested me. What the hell is going on and how do I fix it?

XP>MacBook: Firefox bookmark's order disarranged

rumbles — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 18:27:20 -0800

I just bought a MacBook Pro after my dead Toshiba. Interesting. Different. I installed Firefox and moved my bookmarks from my XP computer. But now they're all screwed up on the Mac! They had been ordered alphabetically with the folders full of links on top, but now the folders are on the bottom (having ordered them alphabetically on the Mac). XP keeps folders together and Mac doesn't, it seems (this seems also to be the case in the "Finder"). Let me know if I'm missing something.... Please float my folders....

Do you let iTunes keep your music folder organized?

sjuhawk31 — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 05:29:42 -0800

Do you let iTunes keep your music folder organized? I'm staring at my music folder, which has been kept in order by iTunes since who knows when. It's all well and good, but I'm itching to reorganize it. For example, if I were to do it myself, I'd put OK Go in Music>>Indie>>OK Go, because I discovered them organically instead of on the radio, but..they're on the radio now. And it's not that I look down on anything that's on the radio, it's just that I found OK Go through a friend, and so I considered them an "indie" discovery.

All this, of course, is in lieu of organizing things by very specific genres...I'd rather have Brendan Benson in an "Indie" folder and labeled as "Pop/Rock" in the genre tag of iTunes than create a "Powerpop" genre.

What are your experiences with either side of the coin? Should I just let iTunes keep organizing my folders, or should I just make these calls as I go and try a reorganization?

What happened to my Application Data folder?

ssmug — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 06:34:50 -0800

Windows XP - My "Application Data" folder is still hidden even with the correct folder settings... Ok, I've done the normal things -- Tools > Folder Options > View > Show hidden files/folders, unchecked "hide extensions for known file types," and "hide protected OS files" -- and my Application Data and Local folders are still hidden. I can access them by typing the full path in the Explorer address bar, but they don't show up in the folder tree. (I have administrator privileges.)

I've tried resetting the folders to default values and then changing back, but still no luck. I've Googled, checked Google Groups and have come up empty-handed.

Anyone out there in MeFi land have any idea why I can't see these folders even with the right Explorer settings?

Thunderbird won't recognize newly created folders

Jaybo — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 14:13:05 -0800

After an automatic update, Thunderbird won't recognize newly created folders. Why, oh, why? After a recent automatic update of Thunderbird, I can no longer move messages to newly created folders. I can still move messages to existing folders as before but now, when I try to move to new ones, I get a message "The message cannot be moved or copied to because writing to folder failed. To gain disk space, from the File menu, first choose "Empty Trash" then chose "Compact Folders" then try again." (I'm also unable to delete the newly created folders either.)

I tried their empty trash/compact folders suggestion and also reinstalled Thunderbird but neither seems to have solved the problem. Any other suggestions?

Messed up Windows "open folder" behaviour

bering — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 02:46:59 -0800

I've messed up Windows "open folder" behaviour. Help! I've used these instructions to try an produce a filelisting, but in the process I've messed up Windows "open folder" behaviour. Now all folder links open in a new explorer window. Other people have had the same problem, but I can't find quite the right solution in the comments. It must be possible to fix it... Any help?

Application that Visually Displays XP Folders in a Pie Graph

abbyladybug — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 14:49:06 -0800

I used to have a little software application that would assess my hard drive and display a colorful pie graph of folders and subfolders, so that it was very easy to visually determine the location of the file bulk. Does anyone remember what I'm talking about? Bonus points for freeware.

How to organise digital photos?

Lotto — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 09:08:35 -0800

How to organise very messy folders of digital photos? My grandmother has on her computer a large number >1000 of photos, some old photos scanned in, some taken with her digital camera. They are in a terrible mess, with no kind of folder organisation to speak of.

She has recently started using Picasa to label by person etc, but the folders on her hard drive are still in a bad state. How would you recommend she sorts them? Very few have dates, so it would be impossible to sort by event. She has tried sorting by family, but this of course creates problems when there are photos with mixtures of people in.

Any suggestions are welcome!

How can I get manila folders in France?

paul! — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 08:48:48 -0800

Getting manila folders in France? I want to organize all my papers using manila folders, or more generally any simple and cheap letter-sized folders with tabs on the top to put labels on. It turns out that while this is a standard office product in North America &mdash practically the stereotypical office item &mdash it just doesn't exist in France, where I live. The company that sells office supplies to the place I work is apparently the biggest one in France, and there's no trace of these in their big fat catalogue. Even the many branches of Office Depot here don't have this product; employees in one of their stores were mystified when I pulled one out to show them what I was looking for. Suggestions on how to get these without paying a lot to get them shipped here from abroad? Anybody know of anywhere these are sold here?

Moving Windows Folders

Knigel — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 15:54:59 -0800

How can I move Windows folders without messing up my system config? I would like to move my folders one down like this:

d:/Program Files/MyFiles

to

d:/MyFiles

I would like to do this without messing up shortcuts already in place. Can it be done?

Thanks in advance.

How to copy folders. Am I really this stupid?

fondle — Sat, 01 Apr 2006 13:30:35 -0800

I need to move many files in different subfolders to one folder, thousands of images to be precise. The files are in dozens of folders like this:

C:\pictures\010106\DCIM\101\image0001.jpg
C:\pictures\020106\DCIM\101\image0028.jpg

etc... so one folder for each day as it were. No file has the same name. What's the easy way to copy all the files from their respective subfolder to a single new folder on another disk? I would prefer to do this in DOS to avoid having to manually copy the files from each folder. This should be an easy task, but I really can't figure out how to do this. I searched AskMe and googled but I found nothing for Win XP.