The Big Mean Folder Machine" makes it easy to organize huge file collections.

The assistant-style interface walks you through the decision process and allows you to create multi-level folder hierarchies and populate them with your digital photos, music, movies or document files. Conversely it also allows to merge the files from multiple folder hierarchies into a single folder. It can also split large file collections into batches of a pre-determined size, for instance for backing them up to CD/DVD or tape.

The Big Mean Folder Machine's database-backed 64-bit processing engine takes care of all the complications that make doing this manually a nightmare. It reads shooting date information from digital photo files (JPEG/Exif and all RAW camera formats supported by Mac OS X), track information from MP3/AAC music files, file creation/ modification dates and file sizes. It takes care of file name conflicts and eliminates manual errors.

Before doing anything at all, it allows you to preview the results to make sure that everything is just perfect. By default, "The Big Mean Folder Machine" always makes copies of your original files rather than moving them, but you can of course also tell it to move existing files to save space and time.

The Big Mean Folder Machine is an essential tool for anyone working with large file collections, including digital photographers, music enthusiasts, content creation, post-production or other creative professionals, system administrators, ...

Creating Multi-Level Folder Hierarchies

new hierarchy can be up to 3 levels deep.
digital photo shooting dates can be read in a variety of formats
splitting criteria include file name, file type, creation date, modification date, etc.
custom criteria creation, includes template based date formats, file name text extraction.
depth of hierarchy can be controlled by specifying the maximum number of files or the maximum size per folder; deeper levels will be created once the limit has been reached.
new folders can be uppercase, lowercase or sentence case.

Typical Tasks

split photo collection by Year/ Month/ Day.
split music collection by Artist / Album / Song
split music collections by Year/ Artist

Creating Batch Folders

splitting criteria include: number of files per batch folder, total size of batch folder in Kb, Mb, Gb
preserve or "flatten" the original folder hierarchy
specify physical or logical file sizes
sort files into batch folders alphabetically, by size, by creation date, by modification date, by digital photo shooting date, etc.

Typical Tasks

backing up your photo collection to 4GB DVDs, beginning with the oldest photos (shooting date) and working your way to the most recent ones.
backing up your music files to MP3 CDs sorted by artist and then by album.