file-date-organizer

File Date Organizer for NodeJS

The following document applies to the command-line usage of file-date-organizer. For usage directly in a Node application, please see the alternate README located here.

Purpose

Locate files by date and move them into a date-based folder structure (ie .../YYYY/MM/dd/hh, etc.). Dates are extracted from the file name (ie Screen Shot 2020-05-28 at 10.16.59 AM.png) or the file properties (created date, modified date, etc.).

More info on why I created this is on my blog: https://fredlackey.com

Installation

npm i -g file-date-organizer

Usage

Exatract then date from the name of the file ...

file-date-organizer \
  --source "/Users/flackey/Documents/Screenshots" \
  --target "/Volumes/MPHD01/Screenshots" \
  --use-name \
  --move \
  --recursive \
  --overwrite

... or, use a file property, such as the creation date ...

file-date-organizer \
  --source "/Users/flackey/Documents/Screenshots" \
  --target "/Volumes/MPHD01/Screenshots" \
  --use-created \
  --move \
  --recursive \
  --overwrite

When I process images from my camera, I use both the --use-name switch as well as --use-created. This ensures files without a date in the name still get moved properly.

file-date-organizer \
  --source '/Users/flackey/pCloud Drive/Automatic Upload/' \
  --target /Volumes/MPHD01/Multimedia/Photos/ \
  --move \
  --use-name \
  --use-created \
  --recursive \
  --overwrite \
  --console

The addition of the --console switch adds an output which is helpful for long-running operations...

Important:
Combining --use-name and any other --use* option will cuase --use-name to be leveraged first. If a valid name can be found within the name then the properties of the file will be ignored.

Parameters

Name	Description	Type	Default
source	Source Directory	string (path)
target	Desination Directory	string (path)
recursive	Locate files recursively	boolean	true
overwrite	Overwrite existing target files	boolean	false
ignore	Ignore existing target files	boolean	false
copy	Copy the files	boolean	false
move	Move the files	boolean	false
use-name	Extract date from file name	boolean	false
use-created	Use created date for target folder name	boolean	false
use-modified	Use modified date for target folder name	boolean	false
add-year	Target folder name includes file year	boolean	true
add-month	Target folder name includes file month	boolean	true
add-day	Target folder name includes file day	boolean	true
add-hour	Target folder name includes file hour	boolean	false
add-minute	Target folder name includes file minute	boolean	false
add-second	Target folder name includes file second	boolean	false
console	Log activity to console	boolean	false
limit	Number of files to process	number
allow-future	Allow file names with date in future	boolean	false

Contact

Please feel free to contact me directly with any questions, comments, or enhancement requests:

Fred Lackey
[e-mail]
http://fredlackey.com