Organise folders and files contained within

[NetTechie]

Hi, new to BRU and so far very impressed with it, however I am struggling to find a solution to my current issue.

I have several thousands of folders which are named as "DAY MONTH YEAR" IE: 01 April 2002 folder, and I wish to reorganise these folders in to year as the top folder, then month as a subfolder. IE: "YEAR\MONTH"

So the end result will be seeing only years at the top level, then the month as a subfolder within the year.

ie:
2002

[NetTechie]

170 views and no reply, surely someone must have come across this requirement before.

[Admin]

Hi, yes, this is possible to do, can you give some practical examples or from -> to folder names?
thank you

[Jack2]

You could reverse the order of the DD MMMmmm YYYY in your flat list in

regex (1)

check the "simple" box
Match:%1 %2 %3
Replace: %3 %2 %1

this turns
01 April 2002 into
2002 April 01

You could then manually create new folders for each year,
so, create a new folder '2002' and drag all your folders that start 2002 into it.

Then, operating on only the 2002 folder, you could either

----------
(a)
create a new set up of empty Month folders
(btw if just using the alpha character they would appear in _alphabetical_ order; or you could prefix them with numerics to place them in sequential order e.g.
01 (Jan)
02 (Feb)
etc
(btw, make a copy of those empty 'Month' folders, so you can paste them all into each year's folder)

Then, again drag each of your (renamed, original) folders into the correct month.

You haven't said how you want handle all the different dates within a month. At this stage you have a folder 2002>April containing 30 other folders
2002 April 01
2002 April 02
2002 April 03
etc

do you want to just dump all the files from all of the April folders flat into your April folder? If so, just do a windows search for *.* on folder 2002>April, copy the files that show up; back out of the search, then paste the files (flat) into the 2002>April. Delete the empty 'day' folders.

---
b)
Get BRU to change your existing folder names into month names

Go to BRU menu Renaming Options, Uncheck 'prevent duplicates'
Then, operating only on the 2002 folder:

in regex (1)

check the "simple" box
Match:%1 %2 %3
Replace: %2

This should change folders
2002 April 01
2002 April 02
2002 May 01
2002 May 02

into two folders
2002>April
2002>May
containing all the files (flat) from the appropriate month


======
If you wanted to _retain_ the individual date folders' i.e. end up with folders
2002>April>01
2002>April>02
2002>April>03

Then repeat the above (first) principle i.e.
Create a new, empty, '2002' folder
Drag everything starting 2002 into it
Then, operating only on the 2002 folder:
use Regex Match:%1 %2 %3 Replace:%2 %3 to nuke the leading '2002' part
This will leave you with a bunch of folders starting with the Monthname
then Create a new 2002>April folder
drag everything starting 'April' into it
then, operating only on the 2002>April folder
use Regex Match:%1 %2 Replace:%2 to nuke the leading 'April' part
leaving you with folders
2002>April>01
2002>April>02
2002>April>03
etc.
====

...but again, I'm not sure how you want to handle the 30x 'day' folders in each month. Also, you might want to clarify/confirm that you want to have the Months foldernames as alpha characters (in which case they will appear in alphabetical order), or as/prefixed-by numbers, so they appear in date order.

I suggest you clarify those points before going further. Other people might have better solutions after that...

[Admin]

You can actually move the files into folders already e.g.

check the "simple" box

Match:%1 %2 %3
Replace: %3\%2\%1

creates folders

[Jack2]

Hi
thanks. That's awesome.
However, the changes are 'redded out' and won't commit when I try it. What am i missing, pls? (I do have write access to the folder)
Screenshot: https://ibb.co/fp9nWqV

TIA

[Panchdara]

Hi
thanks. That's awesome.
However, the changes are 'redded out' and won't commit when I try it. What am i missing, pls? (I do have write access to the folder)
Screenshot: https://ibb.co/fp9nWqV

TIA

Just for sh-ts-n-giggles, try run as Administrator mode?

[Jack2]

found it!

Renaming Options>Advanced> Allow using backslash in renaming criteria...

[Admin]

Yes, that option needs to be enabled to allow folder creation during renaming