file-organizer

Organize files automatically in folders with metadata.

This program organize any types of files with their metadata (lastModifiedTime because creationTime is changed after all copy) and it preserve old metadata.

MainWindow	Preview Dialog

It is possible to select input and output directories through the interface and get a preview of the arrangment. In addition, you can adjust the two variables of the algorithm (maxElementsPerDate and elementsPerDateTolerence).

Screenshots are available in screenshots directory and an example for testing (automatically selected by default) in sample directory.

Run it

file-organizer is a maven project, use your favorite IDE or type the following command in your favorite prompt:

$ mvn compile
$ mvn exec:java

Algorithm notes

Implemented in the FileDateMap class, can be found in fileorganizer/model.

Treatment phases

• storeFileByDate: files are stored by date (hashmap with date as key)
• mergeFilesInFolders: most important part which makes groups with multiple dates
• makeFolderOrganization: compute folders names and makes the output directory hierarchy

Variables

• maxElementsPerDate
  Maximum of files allowed in a single folder (used during mergeFilesInFolders)

• elementsPerDateTolerence
  In the case of [5, 3, 35] (numbers of files per date) if the maximum is set to 7 the algorithm will not merge 5 and 3.
  It is possible to go through it by adding a tolerance: with a tolerence of 1, the maximum will be 7 + 1 = 8 so the algorithm will perform the merge between 5 and 3.

  • This not works if the two folders are not in the same year and month.
  • Tolerence is only used when the following date is too big (35 in the example), it avoids to get tiny folders (3 in the example)

Key points

• The output directory hierarchy begins with the year, then the month and a day (if necessary)

  • There are one folder per year, if no files are dated from a given year the folder will not be created

• Until there are not enough files to reach the maximum for one folder (and dates have the same year), dates directories will be merged into one directory

  • Month can be merged, the result folder will be named "1-4" if it contains files from January to April for example
  • Years can't be merged
  • If there are too much files on one day a folder with the day number will be created and added in the month directory

Issues

• Interface problem in the preview (positionning and progress bar update)
• In some situations it is possible to find 2014/01-04 and 2014/04

Edit file metadata in command line

touch -t Ymdhm filename