how do i quickly sort pix to folders
December 21, 2010 12:06 AM Subscribe
what is a quick way to preview a folder of images and other media, then drag and drop them into appropriate folders? mac mostly
i've searched, read, tried demos etc, but havn't found anything that does the following: my pictures folder gets loaded with random photos. downloads from the web, edited pictures, pictures sent as attachments etc etc. jpegs, gifs, pdfs, tiffs, - all manner of formats. i want to be able to drag a folder or group of folders into a window, have thumbnails appear, then be able to select them and drag them out of the window into appropriate folders and have the thumbnails disappear from the window. i don't need to edit them, change file-names etc. i can do that in the many other photo management programs i have.
i've tried iview-media, iphoto, picassa, shoebox and others. they all do good things, but i still end up with copies moved, duplicates, and folders full of radom pictures, or i have to do all the labor of typing in album names, folder names, event names etc etc - which don't appear in the finder.
example: i want all wallpaper images to go in the "wallpapers" folder in my pictures folder. i want to see thumbnails in a window, in whatever folder(s) i've put in that window, and be able to just drag them to the wallpapers folder and have them moved there, and removed from the thumbnail view. exactly like i used to do with printed photos. i'd go thru a shoebox full of pictures, and tossing them into bins labled "family" "sports" "kids" etc. the photos i toss
i've searched, read, tried demos etc, but havn't found anything that does the following: my pictures folder gets loaded with random photos. downloads from the web, edited pictures, pictures sent as attachments etc etc. jpegs, gifs, pdfs, tiffs, - all manner of formats. i want to be able to drag a folder or group of folders into a window, have thumbnails appear, then be able to select them and drag them out of the window into appropriate folders and have the thumbnails disappear from the window. i don't need to edit them, change file-names etc. i can do that in the many other photo management programs i have.
i've tried iview-media, iphoto, picassa, shoebox and others. they all do good things, but i still end up with copies moved, duplicates, and folders full of radom pictures, or i have to do all the labor of typing in album names, folder names, event names etc etc - which don't appear in the finder.
example: i want all wallpaper images to go in the "wallpapers" folder in my pictures folder. i want to see thumbnails in a window, in whatever folder(s) i've put in that window, and be able to just drag them to the wallpapers folder and have them moved there, and removed from the thumbnail view. exactly like i used to do with printed photos. i'd go thru a shoebox full of pictures, and tossing them into bins labled "family" "sports" "kids" etc. the photos i toss
I think the easiest way to do what you want is with two Finder windows. To use your example...
open up a Finder window, go to your pictures folder, and then, from the "View" menu, change the view to either "as list" or "as columns".
open up another Finder window (command-N) and position it next to the first one, go to whatever folder has the dump of all your images, from the "view" menu select "as icons", then from the "view" menu again select "show view options". Up the icon size to the max, which should be large enough to pick your wallpapers (either selecting by dragging or holding down "command") and dragging to your folders.
if a thumbnail doesn't apply (like for a PDF), then, as said above, the spacebar will let you preview most file types.
posted by sub-culture at 12:30 AM on December 21, 2010
open up a Finder window, go to your pictures folder, and then, from the "View" menu, change the view to either "as list" or "as columns".
open up another Finder window (command-N) and position it next to the first one, go to whatever folder has the dump of all your images, from the "view" menu select "as icons", then from the "view" menu again select "show view options". Up the icon size to the max, which should be large enough to pick your wallpapers (either selecting by dragging or holding down "command") and dragging to your folders.
if a thumbnail doesn't apply (like for a PDF), then, as said above, the spacebar will let you preview most file types.
posted by sub-culture at 12:30 AM on December 21, 2010
Windows based suggestion: Irfanview. There are hotkeys to move the currently viewed image to a folder. That hotkey brings up a list of destinations that are also selectable by hotkeys. So one key to bring up move dialog and one to pick destination, and it can automatically move to the next image.
posted by fief at 8:06 AM on December 21, 2010
posted by fief at 8:06 AM on December 21, 2010
It's not exactly what you're asking for, but Xee is a free, fast image viewer that supports a wide variety of image formats on the Mac.
It has a "Move…" command, that when activated, opens a drawer to the side of the image that contains the folders of the last x folders you have moved images into. The first 9 even get hot-keys to quickly move images into them. So if you have say 10-20 folders that you regularly move your images into, you can do that very quickly, albeit one image at a time.
You don't get the thumbnail view you're after, but it's otherwise a pretty quick and effective way at sorting images into folders, IMHO.
posted by damonism at 3:50 PM on December 21, 2010
It has a "Move…" command, that when activated, opens a drawer to the side of the image that contains the folders of the last x folders you have moved images into. The first 9 even get hot-keys to quickly move images into them. So if you have say 10-20 folders that you regularly move your images into, you can do that very quickly, albeit one image at a time.
You don't get the thumbnail view you're after, but it's otherwise a pretty quick and effective way at sorting images into folders, IMHO.
posted by damonism at 3:50 PM on December 21, 2010
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Also, if you switch the window to large icon view or album view, it'll generate thumbnails automatically.
posted by Jon_Evil at 12:15 AM on December 21, 2010